Automotive Engineering - February 2023 - 31

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The 'haters' go after Toyota
Your article is right on. Frankly, we at The Car Lab have felt
that the industry, including SAE, has been running its own
version of The Emperor's New Clothes for some time - enabling,
via silence, the general media, the public and legislators
to think we can soon be 100% EV and that Moore's Law
applies to batteries. We're all complicit in getting to the current
state. No one of knowledge in the industry believes any
of the looming mandates are possible, but we've been silent
so long. Everyone's afraid to speak up, lest we reveal the cowards
we've been.
Between climate deniers on one
side and purple-unicorn (EV) believers
on the other, we've managed
to waste 20 years with really
very little progress against transportation
GHGs. We'd all have been
a lot better off to approach it incrementally
- say, 1-2% reductions per
year - via CAFE standards and
hybrids of all sorts. If we'd adopted
that rational strategy in 2000, we
could be at 1994 GHG levels today.
From D-segment vehicles and
up (+$65,000), BEVs will be doable
as business cases for OEMs,
for affluent end-user households.
Below that, we'll have to
use other solutions. Every month
we pretend otherwise, and allow
the naked parade to roll on, will
cost our children dearly.
Eric Noble
eric@thecarlab.com
Your " The haters go after Toyota "
Editorial in December's SAE Automotive Engineering was one
of the best I ever read. You are spot on! I have never written
before but felt compelled.
Dennis Mooney
Mr. Mooney is the former chairman and managing director at
GM Holden.
Thank you for your December Editorial about 'the haters.'
Regarding electric vehicles, I'd say the auto industry is way
ahead of infrastructure. And way ahead of the haters. I've
been looking at moving out of state, and many of the homes
I've looked at have zero or one empty breaker position in the
home's 100-amp breaker panel. Wait 'til the haters find out
they can barely support a Level 1 charger at their home, or on
the street outside their apartment.
Dave Steidinger
I thought your Editorial about haters vs.Toyota was a bit over
the top. Toyota needs no defense from any of us, but all NGOs
are not " haters. " And climate change is going to do untold
damage, not so much us, but to coming generations. I can't
see much point in being nice to the footdraggers, who, as Bill
Visnic's article (and much else that AE has been publishing)
stated are not the automakers but
mostly fossil-fuel interests and their
acolytes, including more than a few
political figures. The simple irrefutable
fact is that the world is going
to overshoot the 1.5° C Paris goal,
probably by a lot, with a high likelihood
of irreversible and potentially
disastrous consequences - more
so for poorer countries than the
U.S. and other wealthy nations. The
only way I can see of " managing "
what's happening is through truly
forceful action by governments.
That's of course hard to envision,
but it does no good at all to demonize
those pushing for more
meaningful responses, which are
needed now.
John Alic
Your editorial in December issue was
great. Maybe it will stir some brains.
The coverage of Cadillac's Celestiq
flagship was also very good.
Henry Sommerstorfer
I've been impressed with the posture on EVs that Toyota has
taken for months (if not years) and frustrated that they don't
seem to be getting any traction. In fact, as you say, they're
being vilified for simply making sense. Keep up the good
work and keep your fingers crossed that somehow, logic and
reality will start to peek through the noise.
Bernard Robertson
READERS: Let us know what you think about Automotive
Engineering magazine. Email the Editor at Lindsay.Brooke@
sae.org. We appreciate your comments and reserve the
right to edit for brevity and clarity.
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
February 2023 31
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Automotive Engineering - February 2023

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