It is easy to fire on Toyota for defending their PHEV strategy... But that said: they are not fundamentally wrong. BEVs is not the unique magic solution to every transport problem (sorry Elon).
Like usual, the reality is more complex than that.
A French think tank named The shift project, also came to the conclusion that the fastest way to decarbonize and meet emission targets would currently not be BEV currently but switching globally to super-light ICE vehicle with very small engine and optimized consumption (consumption of less than 2.5L/100 km, meaning > 100mpg). A bit like Japanese Kei car. [1]
And when you think about it, this is not crazy. BEV makes perfect sense in country like Norway, France, Switzerland or Canada where electricity is already very low carbon [2].
It does not if you consider most of the world: Poland, Australia, India, most of Africa and Japan has an electricity still running massively on coal, petrol and gas. It will takes several decade to change that and this is more than the lifetime of a car.
Without even considering that many countries, including Japan, country of Toyota, do not have a power grid design to reload EV in individual home (100V, single phase low power network). That would take massive effort and an other few decades to change that. [3]
Like always: There is clean and nice solutions on paper... And there is the reality kicking in the face
Disclaimer: I do own an BEV because I do live in a country where electricity is low carbon.
A French think tank named The shift project, also came to the conclusion that the fastest way to decarbonize and meet emission targets would currently not be BEV currently but switching globally to super-light ICE vehicle with very small engine and optimized consumption (consumption of less than 2.5L/100 km, meaning > 100mpg). A bit like Japanese Kei car. [1]
And when you think about it, this is not crazy. BEV makes perfect sense in country like Norway, France, Switzerland or Canada where electricity is already very low carbon [2].
It does not if you consider most of the world: Poland, Australia, India, most of Africa and Japan has an electricity still running massively on coal, petrol and gas. It will takes several decade to change that and this is more than the lifetime of a car.
Without even considering that many countries, including Japan, country of Toyota, do not have a power grid design to reload EV in individual home (100V, single phase low power network). That would take massive effort and an other few decades to change that. [3]
Like always: There is clean and nice solutions on paper... And there is the reality kicking in the face
Disclaimer: I do own an BEV because I do live in a country where electricity is low carbon.
[1] https://theshiftproject.org/category/thematiques/transport/
[2] https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/CA-QC
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan