[Is investing in EVs a waste of money? Bad article title that leads to misreading]
After an interview with the president of Toyota’s North American subsidiary in an American automotive media outlet called Autonews, the title was singularly chosen.
“Toyota’s Ted Ogawa: Better to buy credits than ‘waste’ EV investment”
If I translate that sentence
“Ted Ogawa Of Toyota: Better To Buy Credits Than ‘Waste’ EV Investments”
By the way, if you’re a little more active in translating (there’s someone who did that), you can interpret it as below.
“Toyota, president of North America, said, ‘Investing in EVs is a waste of money, so I’d rather buy credits and endure environmental regulations.”
Did Toyota’s president of North America, the head of the core market really mean that? The interview video is on the article page. If you look at the actual video, the context is different.
[Toyota, president of North America, interpreted and translated “Investing in EVs is a waste of money, so I’d rather buy credit and endure environmental regulations”] The title of the original article is a trap. Quotations cleverly attract misreading.
The interviewer’s question is, what if the EPA’s 2030 regulation assumes that 50% of new car sales are BEVs, but Toyota’s forecast is different from the EPA’s? Toyota says that the actual demand for BEVs is important, and that it expects BEVs to account for 30% of new car sales by 2030. Toyota carefully responded that the EPA forecast of 50% and the Toyota forecast of 30% gap would be handled by buying credits rather than by excessive BEV investment.
It means that we respect the regulations, but we will invest in accordance with the actual consumer demand. As a basis, it also talks about the difference between recent BEV sales performance and expectations. In the long run, BEV sales will increase significantly, but the rate of increase is not as much as EPA expects.
Toyota’s management believes that it does not invest in the BEV supply chain in Murisa to meet EPA regulations, which is larger than the actual consumer demand. Toyota’s core management philosophy since its founding is to meet actual demand. It is the famous Just In Time production method philosophy. It means that the BEV conversion will be half a hour late while checking the demand, and that it will invest in 30% of BEV sales by 2030.
Prospects for BEV expansion may vary from car company to car company, but it’s hard to confirm from that interview that [EV investment is a waste of money].
As mentioned in the article and in the interview, Toyota is already investing heavily in the BEV supply chain for over $10 billion and intensively developing several BEV new cars. Be careful because ignoring that context can lead to such a wild interpretation.
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