• News
  • Guides
  • Reviews
  • Media
  • About
  • News
  • Guides
  • Reviews
  • Media
  • About
Sign up Now (For Free)

Sign up for our newsletter and receive the latest automotive news in your inbox!

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Thanks for subscribing!
News
Read Now
  • All News
  • Automakers
  • Automobiles
  • Auto Shows
  • Business
  • EVs & Environment
  • Guides
  • Lawsuits/Legal
  • Regulatory
  • Ride-Sharing
  • Safety & Recalls
  • Technology
Recent
  • Toyota is No. 3 — Third Automaker to Pass EV Tax Credit Threshold
  • Ford Gains Ground on Strong June Sales, Up 31.5% YOY
  • Q&A: Cadillac Lyriq Exterior Design Manager Josh Thurber
  • After 18% Sales Slide, Tesla No Longer World’s Best-Selling EV Brand
  • Get Updated on Cars, EVs and More with the Headlight News Podcast
  • Founder of Spartan Diesel Technologies Faces a Year in Jail for Selling Diesel Defeat Devices
  • What Costs More: New Car or Rent? The $1K a Month Car Payment Hit’s New Highs
  • The Rearview Mirror: The End of the Road for Route 66
  • Here We Go Again: Automakers Report June Sales Decline
  • Recession or Not, U.S. Car Market is in For a Big Boom
Editor’s Choice
    Reviews
    Read Now
    • All Reviews
    • Classic Cars
    • Concept Cars
    • Convertibles
    • Coupes
    • Crossovers/CUVs
    • Diesel
    • Hot hatches
    • Hybrids
    • Luxury Vehicles
    • Minivans
    • Muscle Cars
    • Pickups
    • Sedans
    • Sports Cars
    • Super Cars
    • SUVs
    Recent Reviews
    • A Week With: 2022 Lexus NX 350h
    • A Week With: 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe Overland
    • A Week With: 2022 Volkswagen Tiguan SE R-Line Black
    • First Drive: 2023 Cadillac Lyriq
    • First Drive: 2022 Ford Bronco Everglades Edition
    • A Week With: 2022 Mazda3 2.5 S AWD Hatchback
    • First Drive: 2023 Honda HR-V
    • First Drive: 2022 Ford Bronco Raptor
    • A Week With: 2022 GMC Terrain AT4 AWD
    • A Week With: 2022 Cadillac Escalade Sport
    Editor’s Choice
      Guides
      Car Warranty
      • Endurance Warranty Reviews
      • BMW Extended Warranty
      • Extended Warranty For Cars Over 100k Miles
      • Extended Car Warranty Cost
      • Subaru Extended Warranty
      • CarShield Reviews
      • CarShield Cost
      • Aftermarket Car Warranty
      • CARCHEX Warranty Reviews
      • Reputable Extended Car Warranty Companies
      • Used Car Warranty Companies
      • Best Car Warranty
      • Is CarShield A Scam?
      • Mercedes Extended Warranty
      • CarShield Plans
      Insurance
      • How To Identify A Car Insurance Company
      • Geico Mechanical Breakdown Insurance
      • How Far Back Does A Car Insurance Company Look
      • Mechanical Breakdown Insurance For Used Cars
      • State Farm Mechanical Breakdown Insurance
      • Mechanical Breakdown Insurance From Progressive
      • Dollar A Day Insurance
      • Auto Insurance For SSI Recipients
      • Car Insurance Rates After A Suspended License
      • Auto Insurance For Salvage Vehicles
      • Average Cost of Dodge Ram 1500 Car Insurance
      • Car Insurance Florida
      • Full Coverage Auto Insurance
      • GrubHub Insurance
      • Amazon Delivery Auto Insurance
      Shipping
      • Car Shipping Companies
      • uShip Reviews
      • Auto Shipping From California To Hawaii
      • Montway Auto Transport Reviews
      • Cheap Car Shipping
      • Easy Auto Ship Reviews
      • Auto Shipping Miami
      • Auto Shipping To Alaska
      • Car Shipping Cost
      • Auto Shipping Hawaii
      • Auto Shipping Puerto Rico
      • Sherpa Auto Transport Reviews
      • Auto Shipping Atlanta
      • Auto Shipping Boston
      • Auto Shipping. Chicago
      About
      • About Us
      • Contact Us
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy Policy
      • Affiliate Disclosure
      • Sitemap
      TheDetroitBureau.com

      More than just “another” place to find news, reviews, spy shots, commentary, features, and guides about the auto industry. TheDetroitBureau doesn’t stop with the press releases or confuse a few lines of opinion with insightful, in-depth reporting.

      Contact Us

      Like what you see? Have some ideas for making The Detroit Bureau.com even better? Let us know, we’d love to hear your voice.

        Media
        Listen Now
        • Headlight News: All Episodes
        More from TheDetroitBureau
        • Guides
        • Latest News
        • Auto Reviews
        • Podcasts
        Headlight News

        TheDetroitBureau.com’s Headlight News offers a look at the past week’s top automotive news stories, as well as what’s coming up in the week ahead. Check out the week’s top story and our latest review…along with a dive into the past with this week in automotive history.

        home > news > Automakers > EVs Aren’t Ready to “Take Over the World,” Says Toyota’s Lentz

        EVs Aren’t Ready to “Take Over the World,” Says Toyota’s Lentz

        North American CEO warns “It’s going to be a battle” are models flood market but sales lag.

        Paul A. Eisenstein
        Paul A. Eisenstein , Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
        Jan. 16, 2019
        Toyota's Jim Lentz believes the auto industry is putting too much stock – and money – into electric vehicles.

        By various estimates, there should be as many as 100 all-electric vehicles on the market by the end of 2020, with scores more plug-ins and conventional hybrids already available. And that could pose a major challenge for automakers who are investing billions into the market to build battery-based vehicles. That includes Toyota which is investing about $1 billion to open up a new plant in U.S. in a partnership with Mazda that will, among other products, produce a new line-up of battery-electric vehicles, or BEVs.

        The question is whether all that money could be going down a rathole. For the moment, at least, Tesla appears to be the only automaker making any money on battery vehicles, as a number of industry leaders pointed out during a series of events in Detroit this week.

        News Now!

        That included Jim Lentz, the CEO of Toyota North America, who warned that, “It’s going to be a battle,” as manufacturers struggle to grab customers in a market where “There’s not much growth.”

        Lentz tried to put the situation into perspective by pointing out that only the Tesla Model 3, of all the electrified models now on the market currently is generating more than 10,000 sales per month. And of the 94 “electrified” vehicles on the market – including hybrids, plug-ins and pure battery-electric vehicles – only six top 2,000 a month.

        (Toyota staying in car market for the long haul. Click Here for the story.)

        Proponents of battery technology are quick to note that sales of EVs surged to 600,000 worldwide last year. The Chinese market saw demand for plug-based products double while the U.S. had double-digit growth of its own. But Lentz remains skeptical that the pace will pick up quickly enough to take the pressure off the industry.

        Officials are all smiles after Toyota and Mazda announced it would build its new plant in Alabama. The site will build some electric vehicles.

        “With EVs, I think it’s going to be a while,” Lentz forecast, before they account for a significant share of the market. “I think we’ve over-stated our belief EVs will take over the world.”

        Lentz admitted that everything related to the transportation industry has become increasingly difficult to predict. In a Q&A session at the Automotive New World Congress, he pointed out some bad calls on his own part. At the beginning of the decade he anticipated that the world would reach “peak oil,” the point at which global supplies start to diminish, by 2025, with fuel prices now on a path to $6 a gallon. Gas currently costs a third of that, largely because of a glut of oil.

        But that’s only made it even more difficult to build demand for alternative powertrain technologies, said Lentz.

        And it’s not just battery technology that’s proving a hard sell. Toyota is currently one of three manufacturers offering fuel-cell vehicles in the U.S., with its Mirai model launched in 2015. So far, however, Toyota has struggled to sell just a few 100 of those FCVs, and its competitors haven’t done much better.

        “We were concentrating on passenger vehicles,” said Lentz, which have racked up only a few hundred sales. Part of the problem is a severe lack of places to fill up, with only about 40 hydrogen stations in the U.S., most in Southern California. “Maybe that’s not the best bet.”

        (Click Here to see more about VW’s $800 million EV plant coming to Chattanooga.)

        Toyota has decided to look at other options. While it will continue to offer the Mirai in limited markets, it last week announced plans to roll out 10 prototype hydrogen semi-trucks for use at the ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach. The State of California has set a mandate of eliminating all of the diesel trucks serving those shipping centers by 2025 and Toyota sees hydrogen power as a viable alternative – something the prototypes, developed in a partnership with Kenworth, will help prove out.

        Toyota is teaming up with Paccar to develop a next-generation fuel-cell powered semi-truck to be used at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

        “Maybe the best place to get hydrogen into the market,” said Lentz, “is in commercial vehicles. Then, when we build an infrastructure, we bring on passenger cars.”

        Toyota isn’t the only company buying into that approach. Salt Lake City-based start-up Nikola Motors plans to launch production this year of its Class 8 truck, the Nikola One. And, to help support the fleet it will set up a network of hydrogen fueling stations across the country.

        Lentz isn’t the only one expressing his concerns about the industry’s heavily funded rush into electrification.

        “We have to reduce the amount of money everybody’s pouring in,” Don Walker, the CEO of Canadian-based mega-supplier Magna International, warned in his own speech to the World Congress.

        Despite such concerns, few experts see the industry pulling back on the shift to alternative propulsion. Denis Le Vot, the CEO of Nissan North America, on Monday said his company will have eight BEVs in the market within five years and predicted it will soon be selling 1 million EVs annually, a number similar to what Volkswagen is looking at.

        (To see more about Toyota’s clean hydrogen semi trucks, Click Here.)

        Proponents believe the tipping point will be driven by three factors: the arrival of new long-range models, the growth of the public EV charging infrastructure, and a steady downward shift in EV prices.

        Recently Published
        2023 Toyota bZ4X XLE FWD driving

        Toyota is No. 3 — Third Automaker to Pass EV Tax Credit Threshold

        Yesterday
        2022 Ford F-150 Tremor - front 3-4

        Ford Gains Ground on Strong June Sales, Up 31.5% YOY

        Yesterday

        Q&A: Cadillac Lyriq Exterior Design Manager Josh Thurber

        Yesterday

        One response to “EVs Aren’t Ready to “Take Over the World,” Says Toyota’s Lentz”

        1. kent beuchert says:
          January 17, 2019 at 10:39 am

          “Lentz tried to put the situation into perspective by pointing out that only the Tesla Model 3, of all the electrified models now on the market currently is generating more than 10,000 sales per month. ”
          That’s a false statement. Tesla is “bulding and delivering 10,000 cars per month.” No one knws how many they sold during the month, but since the vast bulk of customers come from the 2 year old waiting list, we know that only a small fraction of those who took delivery actually bought the caar that month. Nor is Tesla actually making a profit – they are simply rearranging their costs and putting them away from car costs

          Reply

        Leave a Reply Cancel reply

        Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

        Share this article:
        © The Detroit Bureau 2022
        • Guides
        • Privacy Policy
        • Terms of Use
        • Affiliate Disclosure
        • Contact Us
        • Sitemap
        Follow Us: