<story><title>Toyota&apos;s game-changing solid-state battery en route for 2021 debut</title><url>https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Most-read-in-2020/Toyota-s-game-changing-solid-state-battery-en-route-for-2021-debut</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chrisseaton</author><text>&amp;gt; Toyota is very late to EV’s&lt;p&gt;Huh? Didn&amp;#x27;t Toyota &lt;i&gt;define&lt;/i&gt; EVs in the 2000s with the hybrid Prius? It became iconic, broke into practical use and the mass market, and led the way for things like the Tesla. They were innovators and disrupters, not late to it.&lt;p&gt;Toyota worked on EVs when they were unfashionable, impractical, and unlikely. And they made them work in spite of all that. Now people are talking about them like they&amp;#x27;re EV laggards. Madness.</text></item><item><author>mcot2</author><text>This is spin. Toyota is very late to EV’s having bet a lot on Hydrogen. As you will see this “next-gen” battery will be in development for at least another 5 years and probably much longer before the $&amp;#x2F;kwh is at parity with lithium ion.&lt;p&gt;Thats also comparing against todays Lithium Ion batteries forget about any advancements happening in the next several years.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>btilly</author><text>Hybrids and EVs are very different.  And what you need to do to make one does not translate very well to the other.&lt;p&gt;Before either hybrids or EVs were commercially viable, &lt;i&gt;The Innovator&amp;#x27;s Dilemma&lt;/i&gt; included a case study done for the car industry on the switch to electric.  The case study concluded that, based on the history of disruptive innovation, the requirements of driving, and the trends in batteries, electric vehicles would become economically viable around 2020.  It also concluded that traditional manufacturers would pursue hybrids but would have trouble moving into the EV market.&lt;p&gt;As a prior correlated example, shortly before steam became competitive for trans-oceanic travel, sailboat manufacturers briefly produced hybrid sail&amp;#x2F;steam ships.  In so doing they made acceptable compromises to sail to allow for the reliability of steam near land.  However none of the companies that did that survived into the steamship era.&lt;p&gt;In fact every detail of that case study has happened as predicted except that they predicted that EVs would start at the bottom of the market and move up, while Tesla started at the top and moved down.  However the jury is still out on who will wind up winning the EV market - Tesla or one of the Chinese or Indian manufacturers who produce low-end EVs in higher quantity than Tesla.  If it is China or India, then that case study will work out in every detail.&lt;p&gt;But the point remains.  Designing an electric engine whose job is to be a boost to a gasoline engine, compromising both power and range, is not on a natural technological path to a pure electric vehicle.  And history suggests that companies that go that route will have trouble when pressure comes to switch to the more natural technology.&lt;p&gt;Therefore Toyota&amp;#x27;s migration to hybrids is not only not a move to EVs, but it was both predicted and is suggestive that they would have trouble moving to pure EVs.</text></comment>
<story><title>Toyota&apos;s game-changing solid-state battery en route for 2021 debut</title><url>https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Most-read-in-2020/Toyota-s-game-changing-solid-state-battery-en-route-for-2021-debut</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chrisseaton</author><text>&amp;gt; Toyota is very late to EV’s&lt;p&gt;Huh? Didn&amp;#x27;t Toyota &lt;i&gt;define&lt;/i&gt; EVs in the 2000s with the hybrid Prius? It became iconic, broke into practical use and the mass market, and led the way for things like the Tesla. They were innovators and disrupters, not late to it.&lt;p&gt;Toyota worked on EVs when they were unfashionable, impractical, and unlikely. And they made them work in spite of all that. Now people are talking about them like they&amp;#x27;re EV laggards. Madness.</text></item><item><author>mcot2</author><text>This is spin. Toyota is very late to EV’s having bet a lot on Hydrogen. As you will see this “next-gen” battery will be in development for at least another 5 years and probably much longer before the $&amp;#x2F;kwh is at parity with lithium ion.&lt;p&gt;Thats also comparing against todays Lithium Ion batteries forget about any advancements happening in the next several years.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ogre_codes</author><text>&amp;gt; They were innovators and disrupters, not late to it.&lt;p&gt;Until they focused too much on where the puck was and not enough on where the puck is going to be.&lt;p&gt;Toyota OWNED the hybrid market. They are barely part of the EV market now.</text></comment>