It isn't just US manufacturers.
I'd say Koreans are probably the closest to the Chinese, but Japanese manufacturers have fallen behind. Toyota spent too much time with hydrogen. Nissan? Honda? Mazda? None of them have a solid lineup of electric vehicles.
I appreciate Toyota's hybrids, but that is not the future and every model year that they try to delay, they are missing out on developing the technology, experience, internal expertise, and platform refinement.
Toyota is the leader by profit, has been selling cars with batteries and electric motors for 3 decades and simply doesn't want to pile into a crowded space where you effectively have to be dumping your product at cost to have a chance of success.
While most others are wasting money on failed forays into the EV market, Toyota has quietly made their entire fleet (modulo trucks) hybrid.
At this point anyone can design a chassis to accommodate a skateboard battery and some drive motors. The only thing Toyota would need to wholeheartedly jump into EV is the supply chain and production capability for big battery packs. Admittedly this is a biggie, but don't discount the possibility that batteries are not at the end of their evolution and early entrants might get burned by some new chemistry or form factor.
> early entrants might get burned by some new chemistry or form factor.
the iphone is an outlier imho, and i dont think EV will replicate this.
The manufacturing capacity of batteries in china will continue to be a dominant force, and prevent competition in other countries from really setting up properly.
Not to mention the chinese EV giants have the R&D budget to be the ones to discover new chemistry.
I think this might be more like a TSMC situation where the rest of the world is always behind.
China will have a critical mass of research, scientists, manufacturing, engineers, and the right government buy in to stay ahead because there's so much demand.
Yeah, my Toyota BZ is great.
Nokia was the leader by profit until they weren't. They even experimented with hydrogen powered phones!
Toyota didn't just spend (past tense) too much time with hydrogen, they're still going with it trying to take a "multi-path strategy" that includes hydrogen engine development.
I'm not sure where they think the market for this exists in sustainable numbers.
I have an insider friend that says they just don’t believe in battery electric and so have never built the supply chain for it. It leaves them searching for the next thing despite what is occurring in the market, they think they’ll prevail as they’re not focused on a (perceived) faulty approach. I’m not privy to all the details they have to reach that investment thesis but it explains a lot we see from the outside.
It's really insane. I live in Japan where you'd think Toyota may have some pull to make their dream come true. My city actually has one (1) hydrogen station, it's only open a day or two a week - it's basically only open by appointment, you have to call ahead if you want to be sure to be able to fill up.
Oh no, how dare a company try and invest R&D into a diversified portfolio of propulsion technologies. I'm sure HN has all the right ideas, just like they had the right idea when Starship was almost sure to beat SLS to orbit and full IOC a decade before Artemis II. I'm sure Morizo is crying after winning his latest gentleman drivers' race and wiping all his tears away with his paper yen.
It is genuinely insane how divorced SV is from actual people and reality.
It's a shame Nissan didn't lean harder into EVs since the Leaf is a great little car, and they were releasing them since 2012.
I agree, but I was more pointing out Nissan because they were relatively early with the Leaf which, I thought, was pretty successful.
Nissan has the Ariya (crossover SUV) and Micra (small city car), both of which have been very well received and are popular in Europe.
Nissan seems to be scaling back their EV push in the US, though — but not in Europe, as far as I know.
Nissan is also making EVs for the Chinese market, which are not being exported anywhere else.
That does beg the question though, if none of the major non-Chinese manufacturers are focused on EVs did they all entirely miss the boat or do they know something the Chinese don't?
Its absolutely possible that they did all miss the boat, but even the stats just in this thread point to a drop in EV sales and economic challenges with regards to price and demand. The Chinese keep prices low with very low labor costs and subsidies from a totalitarian government, our goal isn't and shouldn't be to compete with that on price.
China, for all its flaws, is the undisputed master of innovative automated manufacturing. They can iterate over design revisions quickly. They will build you whatever you want, and, unlike twenty years ago, it will be insanely precise, and everything that can be automated will be. US and EU automakers have to keep their unionized employees happy, which means less automation and less precision and higher prices. Robots and AI don't unionize.
> Chinese keep prices low with .. subsidies from a totalitarian government
Lower labour costs per hour can be balanced against lower cost of living for workers.
Industrial Policy Spending for China’s EV Sector (subsidies) have dropped from $13,800 USD per vehicle in 2018 to $4,700 USD in 2023 and are less today in 2026.
How do these subsidies compare to US subsidies to the fossil fuel oil and gas industry?
BYD subsidies ended this year and Xiaomi was never subsidized.
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