Ford revamps electric vehicle strategy with push into hybrids

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Ford revamps electric vehicle strategy with push into hybrids
The automaker’s EV division has been losing money, but pivoting from all-electric vehicles to hybrid technology could cost Ford up to $1.9 billion more.


A line of 2024 F-150 and Lightning electric pickup trucks at a Ford dealership in Denver in May. (David Zalubowski/AP)

By Aaron Gregg and Maxine Joselow
Updated August 21, 2024 at 10:24 a.m. EDT | Published August 21, 2024 at 9:22 a.m. EDT

Ford is revamping its money-losing electric vehicle business, retreating from some plans for all-electric vehicles and instead prioritizing the development of hybrid technology, the automaker announced Wednesday.

The announcement underscores the challenges facing U.S. automakers as they seek to boost sales of EVs, a crucial technology in the fight against climate change, despite flagging consumer demand, supply chain challenges and increased competition with Chinese carmakers.

Ford is scuttling plans for a three-row electric SUV and spending less of its total resources on all-electric vehicles, with annual capital expenditures dedicated to pure EVs declining from about 40 percent to 30 percent.

Still, executives said production will begin on an all-electric commercial van in 2026. The automaker also has plans for two more electric pickups and long-range SUVs.

{snip}

By Aaron Gregg
Aaron Gregg is a business reporter for the Washington Post. Twitter

By Maxine Joselow
Maxine Joselow is a staff writer who covers climate change and the environment. Twitter

[efhmc]

1. Smart move.

[Caribbeans]

2. Toyota 1:6:90 rule

Toyota was ahead of most

And many people ridiculed the company for not going all BEV

In a country such as Japan that gets most of its electricity from burning coal and natural gas, EVs don’t help the environment, Mr. Toyoda said. “The more EVs we build, the worse carbon dioxide gets,” - Akio Toyoda

Depending on one tech -batteries- for the entire transition is absurd. Unless of course you own stock in battery companies.

[CoopersDad]

3. Toyota's 1-6-90 rule needs some serious clarification/explanation

I'm not in a place where I can do a deep dive but this matters:

By what measure does a battery electric vehicle require 90X the raw materials of a hybrid vehicle?

It can't be taken literally the mass of an EV is not significantly greater than it's hybrid equivalent.

FWIW, I loved my 2012 Volt while I had it-- ran mostly on the battery and only needed two oil changes in it's livetime.

The 2007 Prius lost its battery at the same time it was burning a quart of oil every 5,000 miles.

My first and second Tesla needed nothing beyond tires, wiper blades and fluid, little more.

So, how did they arrive at 90X the raw materials? Are they measuring the mass of unrefined ore for lithium, iron, copper, et al?

[Caribbeans]

4. Toyota is the biggest car company in the world

with 14 factories in North America alone and 67 globally.

Who knows more about vehicles, a buffoon like Elon Musk that literally blew $44 BILLION DOLLARS on Twitter instead of beefing up the horrid Tesla service situation or Toyota?

The 1-6-90 rule comes from the company that makes the most reliable cars on the market. The company that spends billions every year on something called R&D.

Globally, Toyota spends approximately $1 million per hour on R&D, to ensure that Toyota rapidly and continuously develops cutting-edge, high-quality, and appealing vehicles and technologies. https://pressroom.toyota.com/toyota-maintains-leadership-in-automotive-innovation-top-spot-among-automakers-in-annual-u-s-patent-ranking/

How much did Tesla spend on R&D last year?

[CoopersDad]

5. Can you explain how Toyota arrives at their 90X conclusion?

I'm not here to argue, I'm trying to understand their approach to their claims.

Thanks in advance.

[Finishline42]

6. My educated guess is that has to do with the size of the battery

2021 Tesla Model Y Long Range - 320 mile range - 81 kWh - Lithium-Ion

2012 Chevy Volt - battery only range - 53 miles (plug in hybrid) - 16 kWh (seeing different numbers)

2009 Toyota Prius - non plug in Hybrid - not sure of all electric range but very limited. Battery size 1.3 kWh - Ni-Cad.

[CoopersDad]

7. Thank you for the response, for trying to answer my original question.

My wife owns the 2021 Model Y, I have a Model 3 but the battery size is the same at 80kWh.

I agree that Toyota is looking at the resource impacts as they relate to the batteries but they don't state that.

Their poor description implies that the total resources required for each type includes the entire drive train(s) of each, not just the batteries. I would argue that all the steel, aluminum, rubber, etc. that is needed for hybrids and plug ins, added to the batteries, makes the comparison much closer to parity.

Their statement should have identified that they are only describing materials of the batteries, but they don't say that.
And they poop on charging infrastructure in the same ad or literature piece. Not everyone needs to fast-charge, 95% of my driving the Volt was electric and used my home charger-- they are being deliberately deceptive and I'm not sure why.

[caraher]

8. Yes, Toyota is probably not completely up front about their reasoning

They innovated with the Prius but long ago decided not to go the pure EV route and have pushed hydrogen. I had a chance to ask Obama's former secretary of energy Steve Chu about this about 12 years ago and he says Toyota engineers privately told him a major concern was that BEV require too much behavioral chance from consumers. We've grown accustomed to a process where the energy to travel 300+ miles can be added at a convenient time and take no more than a few minutes, and they concluded it was too risky to commit their business to a technology that requires drivers to change their habits. Even "fast" DC charging can't match the rate at which filling a vehicle with hydrogen or a liquid fuel adds range.

Chu felt this concern had merit and Toyota's response was to develop hydrogen rather than BEVs, which would at least be perceived as helpful to meeting climate goals (like every automaker their goal is to sell cars at a profit and not "save the planet," so whether or not hydrogen is fossil fuel in disguise is somewhat immaterial to their corporate calculus).

At the time Chu's own response to this specific concern was to back research into advanced battery technologies that might result in breakthrough increases in charging rate.

At this point, it looks like we've neither seen a game-changing improvement in battery charging time or truly "green" at-scale generation of hydrogen as an energy carrier, so neither way of trying to bypass that limit of BEVs has so far panned out. So for Toyota, there's a self-interested motive to generate analyses that portray hybrids as a wiser choice than BEVs in order to portray their decision not to develop their own line of BEVs as the true "green" option.

This is why independent analyses are more trustworthy than breakdowns given by a corporation selling a product or promoted by their surrogates.

[Finishline42]

9. I agree - Toyota decided to not develop BEV and their current stance is trying to justify that decision

Thanks for the background info on Sec. Chu.

There's one thing that an owner of a BEV can do that an owner of ICE vehicle can't do - make their own energy (maybe some oil baron can but 99.9% can't).

There are a number of posters on this board that have solar panels installed (me included - looking to add some as well) that reduces the amount of energy needed from a utility to power not only their car but also their home. That totally debunks Toyota's position.

[progree]

10. Conventional hybrids get ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of their energy from gasoline (or diesel), so anyone

promoting conventional hybrids (i.e. non-plug-in hybrids) as a solution to the climate crisis is at best ignorant.

Unfortunately plug-in hybrids have their issues too, i.e. that on average they are being driven largely in gasoline mode rather than electric mode, as too many people don't bother to plug them in, or not often enough. And/or generally drive well beyond the 30 mile or so range of their batteries.