Dismiss & Downplay.  It is always difficult to assess the perspective of an enthusiasts.  Since they tend to be well-informed with regard to engineering and have no fear trying new technology, they don't understand the intimidation coming from consumers who face the unknown.  That tends to blind them from seeing barriers, which is how the dismiss comes about.  That is what I was dealing with today... I think.  He could have intentionally been downplaying cost & complexity.  I couldn't really tell.  His reaction to the challenges of setting up level-2 charging at home was brief.  This is all I got: "It is neither expensive nor inconvenient.... I don't know how you think you are helping by trying to pretend like it is.  What do you find hard about it and why?"  Either way, the reply was vague.  Nothing constructive was provided.  So, I went on the offense:

The EV owners group I'm in brings up issues all the time.  Enthusiasts don't recognize barriers.  How is dismissing them as trivial constructive?  In addition to consumers simply being poorly informed & intimidating:

When someone has an old service-panel that is already full, the remedy is not cheap.

When someone only has a single 120-volt line running out to their detached garage, the remedy is not cheap.

When someone has a single-width driveway and multiple vehicles to charge, the remedy is not cheap.

When someone has shared multi-person parking without electricity readily available, the remedy is not cheap.

See the problem?  Yes, each of those can be overcome, but most take awhile.  That interferes with the purchase process... which is how PHEV come into play.  They don't require immediate household upgrades; instead, they actually encourage upgrades afterward.

In short, ordinary consumers won't bite.  Even with the desire, they have far too many unknowns to address.

Constructive Discussion?  Having reality crash down has had somewhat of a humbling effect.  Rather than the constant fighting from every direction, gaps are opening up in discussions where you can sneak in some constructive exchanges.  Ford had to shut down 2 of their 3 production shifts for F-150 Lightning, which later turned into a complete stop.  Inventory is growing.  Mustang Mach-E was already in that situation.  Meanwhile, Tesla continues to struggle with price slashes.  Competition from China was not expected to be so fierce.  The plan was to milk opportunity with CyberTruck, an obvious step in the wrong direction.  In short, we see the industry having to re-evaluate approach.  That meant the nonsense last year is getting exposed as problematic.  Enthusiasts were in denial.  Now, they are faced with growing popularity of hybrids.  It's that competition on the showroom floor I warned them about for years.  They didn't believe dealership challenges.  They didn't expect slow infrastructure builds.  They didn't expect such weak investment.  It was a naive mindset.  They are learning lessons the hard way.  Oh well.  At least some actual critical thinking has begun, so we can have constructive discussion.  I jumped into that today by pointing out what had been claimed about Toyota was really the reverse:  That's reflection upon the "all in" legacy automakers.  GM is a great example.  Somehow it was just going to magically skip any type of bridge and go straight to BEV.  When called out about the absence of a transition plan, those pointing out the unrealistic "pledge" were as if they were spreading FUD.  Cold, hard reality is hybrids are a necessary stop-gap.  The faster they are able to phase out ICE, the faster we can move on to plug-in vehicles.  It's quite remarkable how our infrastructure shortcomings are not being taken seriously.

Restaurant Fast-Chargers.  This article stirred a vital question: "Waffle House is getting NEVI DC fast chargers in Tennessee".  There was excitement in the comments.  I was the only one who expressed concern, asking:  How will idle situations be handled?  NEVI requires a minimum of 150 kW chargers.  That means most charging will be less than the time it takes while in a Waffle House.  The Starbucks/Volvo network (from Seattle to Denver) targeted 62 kW chargers.  Slow meant a longer visit was fine, it encouraged patronage, and that speed did not require an infrastructure update.  It's the maximum existing commercial electricity lines can deliver.

Growth Expectations.  We are seeing more and more assessments of sales based upon anecdotal evidence.  People are looking at recent numbers and projecting them out as a pattern of what will follow.  Some even base predictions upon growth curves with other technologies.  They think adoption rate can be calculated.  How is that realistic in a market with several major dependencies?  This isn't a manufacturing issue, like we have see for chips or displays.  They think it is though, that it is just a matter of improving yields and optimizing production.  If that was all there was, a boom in sales could happen.  Problem is, we have serious education & infrastructure shortcomings.  People wanted faster chips and larger displays.  They inherently understood the benefit and didn't need to change behavior at all.  Like hybrids, the gain was automatic.  Having to plug in requires an upgrade at home and awareness while traveling.  There's a big upfront cost to address too.  Those new speedy computer with bigger monitors retained the old price-point, making this situation very different.  Yet, none of the analogies presented ever take that into account.  They disregard audience too.  It's quite frustrating to see such an absence of critical thinking.  That's why I keep posts to those unrealistic growth expectations relatively brief... like the one today:  Basing growth expectations upon low-hanging-fruit sales is not wise.  Yet, that is exactly what we are seeing.  Enthusiasts turn a blind-eye to subsidies and early-adopter opportunity, portraying that success as representative of how ordinary showroom shoppers... who are not well informed and do not have such income/flexibility... to accept change the same way.

Bridge Choices.  They had been dismissed for over a decade as a waste.  Enthusiasts feared that unless the shortest path to BEV wasn't taken, the effort would fail.  That's quite a vote of no confidence.  They don't see it that way though.  They claim worry about climate change, but turn a blind-eye to automakers producing small numbers of BEV and massive numbers of ICE.  Seeing a transition to plug-in hybrid from hybrid is unacceptable.  That's why Toyota gets attacked so often for their fleet not being entirely hybrid already.  It's the only way they can support a narrative that doesn't use a bridge... a reality they don't want to face.  Fortunately, that fantasy of taking the fast-path is falling apart.  How could anyone expect skipping a stage to work?  It never does.  Best practice with paradigm-shifts is to make the bridge short and easy to cross.  Anywho, that's why GM is back-pedaling now on Volt.  Ugh.  So much opportunity wasted...  As you could guess, I have had much to say on that topic recently:  If the entire industry shifted over to PHEV, even those vehicles with short ranges and limited power, it would fuel (pun intended) major infrastructure investments.  Once you start leveraging electricity, even just a 1.44 kW trickle, it opens up people's eyes to the potential.  It also stirs opportunity charging and establishes a fleet of used vehicle that are not just legacy ICE.  Heck, with my old PHEV that had just a 25-mile EV range, most driving was all electric.  I plugged in at work, so both directions of my commute didn't start the gas engine.

With so many potential buyers stuck with only 120-volt charging options for the foreseeable future, it simply makes no sense ignoring that market opportunity.

First 2024 Report.  Two journalists got an opportunity to drive one around for 4 days.  With outside temperatures in the low 80's, I was especially intrigued.  I continue to hold onto the hope that Toyota will raise the highest temperature allowed.  As far as I know of, known of the other automakers set their maximum so long.  We'll see what comes about.  In the meantime, I was happy to share the following about the article they wrote:  This appears to be the very first review of a 2024 in the United States. It was a FWD Limited. They said very little in terms of detail. This was somewhat useful though: "We did end up charging a couple of times just for the experience. The first time, the SUV was at 45% and plugged in while we went to dinner. It took the Toyota just 54 minutes to get to 100%.  The second time, the SUV was at 60% and it took 30 minutes to get it to 94%."  Their from 45% to 80% was likely very fast (with Panasonic cells) for the 80% to 100% results to deliver an overall 54 minutes.  The next session seems to confirm that.  Being in SoCal, my hypothesis is that Toyota raised the temperature threshold.  Allowing hotter would enable faster DC charging.  For those of us with 2023 AWD models (with CATL cells), that would be a source of encouragement... since such a change would just be a simple software update.

In other words, GM squandered their opportunity... exactly as the "too little, too slowly" concerns warned about.  GM cannot repeat the same mistake with Volt either... refusing to target any particular audience.  That relieved pressure on dealers and doomed it to remain a niche.

Statistic Misleading.  You can tell antagonists are getting annoyed.  Sales of BEV from Toyota were 104,018 last year.  That number is far too high to be comfortable for them to spin convincingly.  With a record-setting 11,233,039 total sales, they can easily mislead with a statistic... just refer tot he BEV sales using a percentage instead.  I have already had someone trying to exclude production in China and anything from the Lexus brand, even though those counts are included in the total.  They want to portray a story of struggle, only a single model that was woefully inadequate.  That's quite telling.  Their narrative requires you to have a narrow view of the world.  Actually looking at detail for a large number of the BEV sold in China would be horrifying.  So many of them have specification lower than bZ4X, it reveals their efforts to mislead as truly desperate.  Just like all those years ago with Volt, the message conveyed must ignore the rest of the market.  Those enthusiasts focused entirely on Prius, pretending no other plug-in hybrid could possibly come about.  It was a "as good as it gets" narrative.  Knowing that history, it sets up 2024 to be a very bad year for those wanting Toyota to fail.

More Range.  It is never ending.  With talk of a PHEV restart from GM, the focus immediately shifted to how to compete.  That same "more is better" mindset is returning.  I'm quite curious how that will play out.  Nonsense related to 0-to-60 acceleration is finally starting to fracture.  Evidence of that is no specific value is sighted anymore.  In the past, there was a clear dividing-line.  It make for quick dismissal of sub-standard choices.  Absence of agreement marks having hit a ceiling.  The same will happen with EV range, eventually.  For now, it is: "Toyota needs to boost range of hybrids to 100 miles plug in."  Trouble with that is when the statement comes without credibility.  Since none currently deliver that, there is nothing else to say.  Quite unlike the hostile attacks coming from certain Volt owners, there's no one throwing feces.  Phew!  It's just mindless chest-pounding.  I'm hoping to steer posts in a constructive direction when the topic of more range comes up.  Here is today's attempt:  That's gross overkill.  Daily driving is less than 40 miles.  Also, you need to consider how it will be charged.  From an ordinary 120-volt outlet, you can only draw a maximum of 5 miles-per-hour for charging.  (That's 120 volts at 12 amps with an efficiency of 3.5 mi/kWh.)  Figuring an overnight charge is 8 hours, you get 40 miles of EV range... which works out perfect for those limited to basic charging.

Debt & Risk.  It always catches my attention when someone online brings up an aspect of Toyota other than technical choices.  Unfortunately, there is rarely ever any substance to support their claim: "Have you seen the size of Toyota's debt?  Massive when compared to other car manufacturers."  There was nothing in this case... no size... no type... no timeline... nothing.  Basically, it's just finger-pointing in place of chest-pounding... which accomplishes nothing.  While articles are being published about the decline of EV demand in Europe & California, which are supposedly represent a forecast for the rest of us, there's no talk of why debt is taken on in the first place.  What's wrong with making an investment?  Unfortunately, I know their answer to that all too well.  Enthusiasts don't like long-term returns.  They want a payoff right away.  Having to wait is not part of their repertoire.  Ugh.  Nonetheless, I try to explain it to that highly resistant audience:  So for those who claim Toyota is unwilling to take risk, yet they are willing to operate with high debt, it's quite hypocritical.  Good business leverages debt.  Using it as a means to overcome barriers is not a bad thing.  Look at how Toyota is also avoiding the price-slash game.  That's a risk too.  Choosing to continue to refine your technology with others battle for low-hanging-fruit is also good business.  Notice how Toyota is positioning hybrids for the opportunity to offer a variety of PHEV models, while at the same time refining their BEV design.  Note that the eCarExpo in Norway will be when Toyota reveals their next BEV.  That's next week, starting on February 9th.  Rollout is expected later this year.