And they should be. Toyota spent so long fighting against EVs instead of embracing them that they could become irrelevant in less than 20 years.
China is heavily subsidizing their EV production. US and Japanese car makers are sitting on their hands and bitching to their government to keep the Chinese vehicles out.
Toyota who got famous for being agile and lean and making just in time manufacturing and continuously improving every aspect of the business.
They then basically run a real world experiment and start fucking around with electric (well hybrid) cars. The results of which are positive, they sell very well, get a lot of publicity and good reviews.
And what do they do. Ignore their entire philosophy, all their data, everything the company is built and and decide “the way we have always done it is best”.
Ohno Taiichi must be rolling in his grave.
Toyota fucked themselves.
But if capitalism shows us anything its that if the big companies don’t adapt and change quickly some small start up is going to blow them out of the water and make them cease to exist.
Ugh? This whole thing is the exact opposite of capitalism working.
How?
One company doesn’t sell a product consumers want to buy so their sales go down.
One company does sell a product consumers want to buy so their sales go up.
How’s that’s not capitalism?
It’s not capitalism because it’s not the market magically fixing itself but China injecting a ton of money to prop up a sector the big companies have purposefully ignored, to avoid spending money on R&D. Plus all the incentives given here and there to push people towards EV.
And the concept of offer and demand is not exclusive to capitalism, no.
Externalities and funding are both concepts in capitalism yes.
You can even treat the countries being developing capital. China has invested heavily in renewable capital. They are going to use that capital to make profit.
I’d still buy a Toyota/Lexus over a similarly priced BYD just because of the reliability track record of Toyota
And Europe should too be sacred.
