Watch Out.  This was an interesting headline: "American Test Of $11,500 BYD Seagull: This Doesn't Come Across Cheap".  We know that China-made vehicles for the market in China lack amenities, limit how much a feature offers, and simply doesn't build to the level of safety required here... but without obvious compromise.  It's the true delivery of entry-level, striving to keep cost down for an audience happy to purchase such a configuration.  That approach doesn't work here; nonetheless, it is worthy of a close look.  We can learn a great deal from their success.  Tradeoffs don't need to be sacrifices.  It's nice to see others recognizing the same thing: "This is what Toyoda needs to watch out for.  Cars like this will eat into Toyotas market share."  Realistically, that same $11,500 worth of vehicle would end up becoming a upgraded model to around $20,000.  That's still a good deal for those hoping to get a decent electric vehicle at a very reasonable price.  I jumped into that discussion with:  That is exactly why Toyota isn't pushing the e-TNGA platform in high volume.  Refinement to hardware & software within is the priority, in preparation for competing with the new platform later.  They low-key rollout serves well for establishing reputation in the meantime too.  Heck, there's even the benefit of learning from BYD itself with bZ3.

BYD Seal.  Pressure coming from China is quite difficult to deny at this point.  In fact, you have to go out of your way to avoid addressing it now.  Someone put it this way: "Absolutely inevitable, BYD are producing cars that are great and affordable and there is a decent range of models.  Tesla has a reductionist one size fits all approach to interiors that I'm certainly not alone in disliking.  Tesla has an awful lot of momentum behind it, but I don't think their approach works in the long run."  With so much attention & resources devoted to Cybertruck, this realization was only a matter of time.  In fact, that's why Toyota is putting so much effort on their next-gen platform.  It simply makes no sense competing at this stage, where enthusiasts are still obsessed with range & speed.  It's so absurd to disregard the market segment which provides sustainable profit.  This latest offering from BYD confirms that.  It's a midsize sedan, what you'd expect from a Corolla or Camry... hence Toyota's forward-looking approach.  So, it is more than just an entry-level offering.  Choice of LFP batteries with 61.4 or 82.5 kWh capacity make it competitive without going overboard.  We see VW and Hyundai settling on similar choices.  Tesla hasn't made that a priority yet.  With Cybertruck such a disaster and the mystery of how CCS will be supported at Superchargers, having intent unknown will become more and more of a problem.  Notice how Toyota has a technology roadmap?  As much as enthusiasts dislike the slow pace, they at least have expectations spelled out.  From Tesla, who knows.  That's not good for a rapidly evolving market, which is why I asked:  We have been watching Tesla fall into Innovator's Dilemma.  It was quite predictable, a trap easily avoided. Instead, effort was focused on refining Model 3/Y rather than diversify.  Then to neglect the entry-level market even more, the monstrosity called Cybertruck was produced.  It doesn't take much to see how much delight BYD got from seeing the opportunity Tesla wasted.  Question now is will the wake-up call be taken seriously?

No User-Guide.  Last year brought about a ton of BEV attention from the rental market.  Their business was to promote use of electric-only vehicles.  I was intrigued by that.  How would they reach such a resistant audience?  Turns out, they didn't actually try.  Hope was placed entirely on consumers already being well informed.  It was a terrible assumption to think education would come from other sources.  That gamble failed to deliver too.  What a mess.  From hybrids, I discovered how much was required to be taught.  With an expectation of having a great driving experience, you absolutely must take a proactive approach.  For me, that was providing a printable user-guide.  Now with the convenience of online video, you would have expected that as a minimum.  Why not have a series of short how-to videos readily available for renters?  That didn't happen.  Nothing was provided.  That resulted in surprises & mistakes... exactly what you don't want to happen.  The rental experience turned into a bunch of negative takeaways, many expressing a disappointing experience.  Quite annoyed by such an obvious & preventable outcome, I posted:  Not hearing or seeing anything related to consumer eduction from Hertz was a dead giveaway there would be preventable problems to follow.  Long ago, hybrid owners created an easy to share guide after seeing how much confusion supposedly simple operation was tripping up newbies.  BEV supporters failing to learn from that success has been quite a surprise.  Being unfamiliar & intimidated is a much bigger deal than they realize.

Leadership.  The recent new of some type of plug-in hybrid from GM being considered sure has stirred some old problems.  I particularly liked this reminder: "GM gets something innovative to work well, then abandons it before the next innovation is ready to dazzle the customer (think Bolt EV, as well as Volt)."  Focus on praise is the problem.  GM executives thrive on hype.  Once something becomes established, no longer standing out makes it easy to be overlooked.  Why invest in something that has been accepted as normal?  In their mind... that of an enthusiast... it is looked upon as boring.  How can one draw inspirtation from a common technology?  Ugh.  That is literally where innovation can florish... a large user base who can benefit greatly from even just subtle new refinements.  That sentiment of complacency is what enables the same mistakes to be repeated.  Makes you wonder what GM will do this time.  How will PHEV be presented all these years later, long after the EREV debacle has pretty much been forgotten.  Will GM bring that back to life or finally do what needs to be done?  Offering a balance of range & power is not what they do well.  Toyota does, which is why there was so much animosity against them.  You could tell, since that hatred was directed entirely at Prius.  Camry hybrid was ignored and the possibly of a RAV4 hybrid with a plug deemed impossible.  They were wrong, very wrong.  It all comes down to messaging.  If management feeds enthusiast hype, the project is doomed.  They are the wrong audience.  I pointed that out with:  That abandonment comes from the definition of leadership pushed here.  This audience only considers innovation as the measure of progress... praising the automaker further ahead than everyone else.  They absolutely refuse to look at it from a macro-economic perspective.  The rest of the fleet is just dismissed as unimportant... which in this case results in neglect of entry-level offerings.  That makes it easy to abandon loss-leaders for the masses... which is exactly what we saw with both Volt and Bolt.

PHEV Love/Hate.  Here we go again.  GM's reputation for changing its mind and making bold promises continues.  Today's headline made that all too apparent: "GM Is Suddenly In Love With Plug-In Hybrid Technology"  From the purist, their predictable & familiar attacks followed: "Love is in the continuing smog air."  They don't like anything with a gas-engine, period.  That absolute is the only way to their future.  Taking into account difficulty some will have finding a means to recharge doesn't matter.  Either you are for ending the ICE age or you are not.  Phasing out internal-combustion-engines is an unacceptable approach.  They expect production & sales to somehow magically end right away.  That's why they so readily accepted those empty promises from automakers, without any request for how that would be achieved.  I find that quite telling.  They simply endorse those who tell them what they want to hear.  That's quite troubling, but understandable.  Most of those who have a good working knowledge of the technology tend to know little about the business aspect of the market.  They just see how numerous technical challenges have been overcome and assume there's nothing left.  If you call them out on it, you can labeled as a fanboy or apologist or anti-EV.  That picture seen with rose-colored glasses doesn't hold up to real-world pressures... exactly what we saw from GM with Volt.  How have things changed?  There is far more PHEV potential high-volume sales now.  The technology is already well proven too.  It makes decisions from shoppers who a plug-in but face charging barriers much easier.  Arguments of that nature don't work with someone who has already made up their mind though.  The only recourse available is to punch back on exactly what they identified as vital, like this:  Like what comes from empty "all in" pledges for BEV sales?  At least with PHEV, a large chunk of the population could be reached quickly.  A competitive PHEV will deliver mostly EV miles, resulting in a dramatic reduction of gas use... smog air.

25 Words or Less.  This was an interesting request: "I, like all the rest of you EV drivers I'm sure, get asked about mileage.  I've only had my Hyundai Ioniq 5 about 5 months, haven't really taken any long trips yet and I'm never sure what to answer.  "It depends" seems pretty unhelpful, but it does.  What's a good 25 words or less answer?  Thanks."  I let him figure out how to word his response.  A specific amount of words is far too arbitrary... especially without context or knowing the person's background.  This is the feedback I provided:  I tell people my average is about 2.7 mi/kWh in the winter, about 3.5 on road trips in the summer, and low 4's for day to day driving when its warm.  I add that it costs me $0.08 per kilowatt.  Then I provide a real-world example, like the 165 miles drive to our timeshare.  That trip up north works out to less than $4, an easy value to relate to.  No ICE can do that same trip for so little.  With regard to distance, I point out my 65 kWh of capacity available.  That works out to 227 miles, plenty for the trip up north.

Variety of choice would have ushered in an affordable EV.  We could have seen GM milking their outdated design for 20-25k and marketed their Ultium as their premiere choice.  For those with range anxiety, paying more for the PHEV makes sense.  $32,975 MSRP for Prius Prime is proof that GM misjudged audience.

Struggle For GM.  That pattern of praising GM for promises and attacking Toyota for actually delivering is nothing new.  That bias from apologists is actually a convenient guage of progress.  When they refuse to acknowledge facts and attempt to suppress those who speak out, you know the opposite of what's being claimed is likely.  This article from 2 days ago attempted to address that, stirring the obvious need to change: "GM Promised An Electric Car Revolution. Here's Why It's Stalling"  There does seem to be some messaging that is actually changing.  Dead discussions are being revived: "Volt died when GM killed the Cruze and shuttered the factory that was producing that vehicle platform."  It is an invitation to present facts that had previously stirred much ire.  I'm quite curious what replies to this will be:  The tech itself should have lived on. GM did exactly what the bankruptcy recovery team expressed concern about... too little, too slowly.  Now, they are doing the opposite now... too much, too quickly.  Watching Toyota deliver exactly what they were striving for with strong demand is the ultimate irony.

Seeking conquest sales, as GM did with Bolt, turned into a negative as a result of the LG battery fallout.  Trying to get beyond that mess by hyping an unproven new battery hasn't gone well.  Wouldn't a low-key rollout have been much better?

Company Fuel Card.  We all know about the obvious undermining efforts of some to distort & mislead.  With the case of plug-in hybrids in Europe, it was quite blatant.  Their data was cherry-picked.  Surveys focused on outdated vehicles and those that were never looked upon as competitive.  That's why new offerings, like RAV4 Prime, were excluded entirely.  It was a look backward with undeniable efforts to undermine.  Focus was primarily on emissions.  Claims were made, supported by data, which showed those PHEV were far dirtier than expected.  Over time though, those numbers became extremely difficult to include in talking-points.  Eventually, vague references to "never plugging in" became antagonist reasoning.  They would attack PHEV at every opportunity to say their was evidence of drivers not plugging in.  It was always in the form of a referral to the survey.  Nothing else was ever provided.  Now, we know why.  They feared evidence revealing their claim as not objective would eventually be found.  Today, that finally happened: "Another look at PHEVs in the European Union found that PHEVs had much higher emissions in real world driving compared to predicted emissions assuming charging every day.  This was particularly true for company cars, where drivers were often given a company fuel card but would have to pay for electricity themselves."  We always knew that pretty much all the data from the survey came from fleet vehicles.  That's easy to collect and supposedly provided a diverse sampling of drivers.  The catch is, there was no incentive to plug in.  Why would you bother when electricity there is expensive and you wouldn't get reimbursed for using it?  What a terrible business decision.  Clearly, there was some government subsidy of some sort for using PHEV or just a better retention of value for resale later.  Whatever the case, we now have evidence proving bias.  That data was undeniably a means of misrepresentation questioned over and over again for good reason.  It was inappropriate.  Having learned about that omission, it is up to PHEV supporters to point out the damage such an effort caused.  That sourced seemed untrustworthy.  There was always deflection when detail was requested.  We know why now.

GM Repeating History.  How many times should you have to point out the same thing?  Some never learn, which is why history repeats.  I shared some of that past, yet again:  Concern raised by bankruptcy oversight for GM was when Volt rolled out, there would be "too little, too slowly" from that technology.  It's exactly what happened too.  Rather than spread across the fleet... likes Toyota's technology aspiration... it would be treated as a niche.  As the years went by and gen-2 Volt struggled to grow beyond conquest sales, GM gave up rather delivering upon that long-time promise of a plug-in SUV.  Some of us still remember that Saturn Vue prototype using an augmented Two-Mode system offering a plug.  It simply made no sense betting the farm on BEV in such an early stage.  Heck, even now we are only just entering the "teething" stage of the technology.   It leaves GM without any type of bridge, nothing to transition with or appeal to intimidated consumers.  The risky gamble didn't pay off.  GM's problem has always been an unwillingness to diversify.  Having a mindset of one-solution-for-all will prevent a new PHEV endeavor from successing.   Clarity of purpose & audience is a GM weakness.