Portraying Toyota as the root of all automotive evil, as this ad campaign clearly attempts, is a sign of denial... an obvious unwillingness to address problems of cost, supply, infrastructure, and education.

In short, this is why so many have made Toyota the antithesis.  They recognize how the automaker was able to overcome both engineering & business challenges others struggled with.

Industry Change.  With the status quo being shaken from many angles, it is interesting to see how some deal with that.  From those endorsing "all in" proclamations, it's starting to get a little dicey.  A means of getting some to notice next-step problems is the growth of DC fast-chargers.  New locations are taking a very long time to build, while at the same time existing ones are falling into disrepair.  We have seen many stations being replaced and the newer machinery proving to be much better.  The resulting rollout slowdown and added expense is bad enough.  Tarnish of reputation as a result is costly.  Toyota's effort to avoid that isn't appreciated.  Taking a slow, manageable pace that allows for flexibility is unacceptable.  We don't know what the shake up with bring about.  Give some thought.  If the DC fast-charging network is heavily built out with several major brands competing, what is the point of having a large battery-pack?  That much capacity is totally unnecessary once closing the 50-mile gaps is complete and stations pop up in between.  Heck, along the highway corridor I live, there are plans of 8 locations all within a 40-mile span.  There's no need for a 300-mile capacity at that point.  In other words, those pushing for more are focusing entirely on the short-term and trying to make Toyota look in a villain for focusing on the long-term.  Ugh.  Needless to say, this is why schedules clash.  Here's how I pointed that out this time:  Toyota already delivered a dedicated platform.  What was used by bZ4X was designed specifically for it.  The catch is that approach wasn't optimized, legacy attributes were not entirely eliminated from the engineering.  It was a production tradeoff.  With their second-generation motor coming in 2025, it makes sense to have planned that for a fresh start... especially with the third-generation motor targeted to follow in 2027.  Both will feature size reductions and efficiency improvements... and will obviously take advantage of what was learned from the first dedicated platform.  It is a logical move from the long-term perspective, where you want to avoid getting trapped by whatever your first rollout established.  Planned upgrades sound terrible with regard to short-term reward though.  Quite the opposite for engineers, who get an opportunity to take what they learned and apply that gained knowledge.  That now begs the question of strategy.  What will the new CEO do?  Since we don't know how other automakers will transition, the game is only just beginning from an industry change perspective.

Trojan Horse.  The attacks on Toyota are relentless: "Toy boys better get their a-- in gear before it's too late."  Of course, my rebuttal to most of their nonsense falls on deaf ears.  However, the effort is not in vain.  It forces me to think through each situation in great detail, often requiring quite a bit of research to reply.  That information found then becomes exposition for those replies and ammunition for future battles.  I end up well armed and well positioned for the next round of attacks.  That also serves as confirmation that nothing has been overlooked.  When searching on known criteria, I will often stumble upon leads for other research.  It's very education and extremely refreshing.  You'd think the opposite, that I'd grow tired of all that hate.  Instead, that on-going information becomes useful material and a wonderful source of validation.  In fact, that's why I participate so much on the hate sites.  It's easy to fall into the "group think" trap, where the entire venue endorses a mindset to the point of blindness.  They filter out what they don't want to see.  I challenge that and they are not shy to provide feedback.  Anywho, the market has progressed to the position where shortcomings are beginning to become difficult to deny.  I am more than happy to draw attention to that too:  The measure of "late" is arbitrary, since there are no milestones.  For that matter, the supposed "all in" legacy automakers have no penalties or consequences for not meeting their own vague promises.  There is also the reality of transition plans.  Currently, the spotlight is on initial BEV rollout, which could easily be a Trojan horse.  That low-hanging fruit (early sales) does not in anyway represent what comes next.  Reaching naysayers and intimidated consumers is far more difficult.  Yet, no one is asking for those plans.  At least with Toyota, we see the progress of phaseout.  We have already seen Sienna & Venza become hybrid only, with Camry presumed next.  In Europe, Prius is becoming PHEV only. At the same time, their BEV tech is getting refined.  In short, how is "late" defined without taking plans for the rest of the fleet into consideration?

Hydrogen Investment.  A dead giveaway that EV enthusiasts are not being objective is when they attack Toyota for betting the farm on hydrogen.  They portray the effort to diversify as a complete waste, that nothing whatsoever resulted from that money spent.  Reality is there were many shared components and Toyota is not exclusively a producer of personal transport.  They sell other things too.  Seeing fuel-cells being used as generators on new construction sights makes a lot of sense.  Those locations always need large diesel units to supply electricity.  Why not use hydrogen instead with a much cleaner consumption technology.  For that matter, think of how many food-trucks there are using gas generators.  Then of course, there are boats & planes to consider.  Large battery-packs aren't always practical.  There's the interesting twist of using hydrogen & fuel-cells at large DC fast-charging stations too.  Point being, Toyota had good reason to pursue that opportunity along side plug-in options.  After all, it's not like Honda, GM and Hyundai aren't also still investing in their hydrogen programs.  In another interesting twist, there's a resolution being challenged in Minnesota that the 2035 carbon-free target restricts fuel to electricity & hydrogen.  The idea of electric-only is great, but storage of significantly increased solar & wind must be addressed.  Hoping there is enough sodium-ion cells by then isn't a good risk.  Toyota sees that too.  That's why it is so easy to post replies like this:  Developing hydrogen via passenger vehicles made sense, since it was cost-effective means of reaching those who make commercial/industrial decisions... which ultimately, that's where the technology will be used.  That long-ago dream of fuel-cell use for personal transport is over, but the takeaway of proving those stacks will can be used elsewhere was worthwhile.  Carryover of that EV drive (shared components) to both PHEV and BEV proved useful too... hence the focus now shifting to optimization of the dedicated platform.

Same Arguments.  The idea of "hybrid reborn" isn't sinking in.  Antagonists are under the impression that rhetoric of the past will continue to be effective.  They haven't noticed change.  Seeing far more access to level-2 charging and the fact that charging speed for most plug-in vehicles has risen from 3.3 to 6.6 kW.  That improvement to electricity access has shifted benefit in favor of PHEV, since this isn't a moving target as they assume.  Faster AC is far more advantageous when recharging a smaller battery-pack.  Obsession of BEV purists with range blinded them from seeing that reality.  A quick top-off at the grocery store can provide a big impact.  In other words, that same argument of the past about how time required doesn't work.  It has been reduced by 50%.  There is a 50% gain in terms of range as well.  With the 25-mile range of my current Prius Prime, I could only all-electric commute by plugging in at work.  With the 40-mile range of this upcoming next-gen Prius Prime, that wouldn't be necessary.  It is a double-whammy for antagonists.  Toyota wasn't suppose to deliver such improvement.  I was thrilled to draw attention those battles of naysayers having been lost too:  Prius will only be available as a PHEV in Europe.  With a WLTP range of at least 60 km, that sleek new look, and so much more horsepower than the prior generation, FUD of the past will be seen as exactly that.  Compares to BEV will get reconsidered too, like how convenient it is to charge at home without an EVSE install or what to do about a second plug-in vehicle.  In other words, this new Prius Prime basically presses the reset button.  All new FUD will need to be created to evade claimed shortcomings of the past.  The same arguments won't work anymore.

Affordable Choices.  This was a great example of on-going rhetoric: "If Tesla does deliver the teased low cost model, Toyota will likely struggle to catch/keep up."  All that fighting a month ago prepared me well for this.  And yes, my ability to post has been restored.  The troublemaker is long gone.  Not only is his role of admin a horrible memory of the past, his existence is gone too.  He must have deleted his account.  Awesome.  It was difficult to have any type of constructive post about 4X (and Solterra) with him constantly promoting Tesla and insulting Toyota.  That meant getting any type of useful exchange going about entry-level vehicles would continue to be impossible.  I kept trying though, but routinely bringing up VW's effort with ID.4 in Tennessee.  Having a smaller battery-pack and qualifying for the tax-credit meant great opportunity for actually getting a low-cost market going.  Knowing GM's offering of Bolt will be coming to an end, there wasn't much else to leverage.  We could be led on for years still from Tesla, because there is a very real problem of internal competition.  The new offering must be different enough not to interfere with existing demand.  Simply diverting interest to a new choice is counter-productive.  Growth won't be achieved that way.  Profit is a very real problem in that regard.  The market for entry-level vehicles is challenging.  Extras that return a premium are not part of the equation.  In other words, low cost means not including unnecessary... like FSD.  Full-Self-Driving makes no sense in the "nicely below $30,000" category.  Of course, with economic inflation and industry deflation, it has become a very difficult category of "nicely below $35,000" instead.  That's an arduous sell, even with the knowledge of much lower operating cost for a BEV.  Those buyers of entry-level vehicles aren't willing to take risks like that.  They want certainty.  That's exactly why Toyota plays the long game.  They provide that proof.  Remember what it took for Prius to achieve that?  Most people don't... especially Tesla fanboys... which I was all too happy to point out:  Notice how "teased low cost model" is always void of any detail?  It's quite hypocritical for enthusiasts to call Toyota a fail for range & speed, while simply dismissing all other purchase criteria, then claim Tesla will reign superior without ever specifying why.  We have been through this before, several times.  The repetition of history is truly remarkable.  A competitor of Toyota will arbitrarily be declared vastly superior, long before anything is actually delivered.  Reality is, Tesla is on shaking ground.  Their current offering... Model 3/Y... is getting very long in the tooth and used values have plummeted due to price reductions.  That means it faces some type of major alteration to keep fresh while at that same time not lose sales to the "teased low cost model".  In other words, the situation is not as you portray.  There are market complexities being overlooked.

Already Known.  Gotta love the spin which comes whenever there is a big announcement from Toyota.  We knew there was fallout from the 4X rollout.  Heck that outcome was obvious long before the recall.  Emphasis on longevity, clearly evident by the speed of DC fast-charging, made that obvious.  Toyota had different priorities on a timeline unlike other automakers.  They play the long game.  This nonsense of leadership measured by things like speed is so wasteful.  Halting the schedule to reconsider approach on a fundamental level was already known.  We had no idea what would happen, but for a very long time we were told the current platform would be expensive.  It was dedicated, but not optimized.  The approach was to leverage existing production opportunity to establish reputation of quality & reliability.  Seeing the industry taking risks and not being too terribly concerned about fallout wasn't expected.  They are growing desperate though.  Absence of hybrids is a big problem.  Ironically, that must fought against "stop gap" is now exactly what they need to bridge the transition.  They have no safety net, no backup.  It's a fall-forward approach, hoping for the best.  Remember how well that went for GM with Volt?  We're already seeing evidence of the same trouble emerging from Ultium.  Oops!  So, it is quite understandable that Toyota is again being made a target for them to vent their own frustration.  Having a scapegoat makes them feel better.  I simply don't care.  I say it like it is.  They don't like that.  So, I did it again by providing this reminder in today's spin effort:  Discussions since November have been about how Toyota's next step would go from the dedicated EV platform they are already using for bZ4X to an optimized EV platform for future BEV offerings.  We always knew more would be revealed in late January, how that move to become more competitive would be achieved.  A new CEO is what many suggested.  That is today's news, not an "EV only" change.

Choosing To Ignore.  Tired of my persistent resistance to his attacks, he finally grew tired of arguing and claimed to put me on ignore.  I find that type of reaction quite telling.  From him was nothing but a tit-for-tat dismissal, rather than anything constructive.  I would point out something overlooked and he would claim it was a deflection rather than acknowledging the point.  I don't expect a detailed understanding or even a counterpoint; I do expect some type of cognitive exchange though.  Of course, just shooting me down does have some advantages.  I can rebut without replies that are deliberate efforts to undermine.  The absence of recognition provides wonderful exposition opportunity as well.  This is how I informed him I was delighted with his choice to ignore:  Roughly 75% of the technology used in PHEV by Toyota carries over directly to their BEV, confirmed last month by a Toyota exec.  Focus now is turning to BEV platform optimization. Their first dedicated platform takes advantage of motor, controller, inverter, software, etc. reuse opportunity, but isn't ideal in terms of production costs or overall efficiency.  As for ignoring that message and the messenger, that would be great.