Automotive Engineering - December 2022 - 4

EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
Bill Visnic
Editorial Director
Bill.Visnic@sae.org
The haters go after Toyota
Want your company to be the target of
haters? Here's a sure way to do it, as
proven in 2022.
Design and engineer vehicles that set
the industry standard for reliability.
Manufacture them using a production
system of your invention, that is the global
template for process efficiency and
quality. Then launch a groundbreaking
product that stuns your competitors, becomes
synonymous with fuel economy
and practicality - and delights more than
5 million customers across the planet.
That 'green car' icon - Prius - is now
entering its fifth generation with serious
style and even greater efficiency.
You, Toyota Motor Co., have succeeded
on these fronts because
you run your business conservatively.
Your methodical
product development
and high standards in validation
are legendary
among suppliers. Your process-centric
approach has
made your enterprise the
world's largest automaker.
Unfortunately, the bigger
Lindsay Brooke
Editor-in-Chief
Lindsay.Brooke@sae.org
enough for the media noodlers whose
personal vehicles (if they own one) are
often clapped-out GTIs or beater Civics.
Even the cheapest new EVs are priced
way beyond the salary ranges of this 'Do
as I say, not as I do' bunch.
While haranguing Toyota and the inthe
organization, the fatter
the target. And increasingly,
the haters are waging war on Toyota. In
the past year, the usual environmental
NGOs and media soap-boxers have been
slamming the company that made hybrids
cool and electrified propulsion
popular. Toyota has not committed to
100% battery-electric vehicle production,
but the haters want that pledge within a
timeframe they dictate. My morning
news feed usually includes some wannabe
'expert' dissing Akio Toyoda for not
flipping a switch to shut down his company's
ICE and hybrid plants tomorrow.
Toyota has announced a 10-year plan
to accelerate its EV programs. It's expected
to increase those investments
and turn up the product-development
wick, a top company executive tells me.
But that's not good enough for the more
strident enviros, who typically go by the
title " campaigner " because " attorney " is
too transparent. And it's not good
4 December 2022
They're dissing
Akio Toyoda
for not flipping
a switch to
shut down his
company's
ICE and hybrid
plants tomorrow.
dustry in general, the haters don't understand
global automaking (nor do they
want to) and refuse to accept its myriad
benefits. Instead, they convince themselves
that loyal users of Hilux pickups,
Land Cruisers and Tacomas in places like
Australia, Africa and the U.S. Midwest are
lusting for EVs. Electrification's ultimate
success must come from market demand
for EVs (rather than retail subsidies) and
involves a whole lot more
than wiring up big cities in
the U.S. and Europe.
A fact that the haters
find distasteful: Sales of ICE
and hybrid vehicles are
footing the bill for EV technology
development.
Toyota's profits from RAV4
and RX, Supra and Sienna
- and the stalwart Tacoma
- are helping to fund the
company's R&D in solidstate
lithium battery chemistry, for example.
ICE and hybrid sales across the
industry are expected to serve that vital
role for some time to come, as my colleague
Bill Visnic reports on page 23. I
want EVs to be mainstreamed and
priced for working people to afford. But
that's not going to happen tomorrow,
as SAE readers know. We're in a period
of mobility history where every technological
problem solved is followed by
two more technical, business, or existential
challenges.
Of course, we've seen the hater thing
before, with an ironic twist. Two decades
ago, many of the NGOs and media whiners
who today are blasting Toyota over
its product strategy were attacking every
OEM except Toyota over...those accursed
SUVs that are now the dominant
vehicle type.
Lindsay Brooke, Editor-in-Chief
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Automotive Engineering - December 2022

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