From the press conference:
Toyota and BMW to collaborate on
- Joint sports car (joint technology, separate design)
- Lightweight technology (carbon fiber, also for sports car)
- Lithium air battery (air, not ion )
- Fuel cell
Electric power train DROPPED from the list.
More to come …
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Toyota seems to be pressing the sports cars lately. It is probably a strategy to pollinate lessons learned onto the rest of their line up, because I don’t see the Toyota brand directly benefiting from multiple sports cars.
Unless we find a raw hydrogen source (e.g., new gas wells with high volume fraction H2), fuel cells are a waste in cars. Even with all their current limitations, batteries are superior, and I don’t expect improvements in fuel cell tech to outpace improvements in batteries enough to change that.
Hydrogen is just an alternative battery chemistry, and needs to be evaluated as such, because the energy to move both cars is going to come from the same place.
Then there’s availability.
Hydrogen cars have been a pipe dream that’s just a few years away since I was a kid in the 1980s.
But I can go down to my local Nissan dealer and buy an EV with a lithium-ion battery. I test drove it and liked it a lot, especially for its NVH and low-end torque (as far as happy little commuter cars go). Huge astoundingly significant point to lithium-ion for actually existing on the retail market.
I’m guessing that either Nissan or Tesla will make my next ride. Our Sienna and our Prius are both keepers and they’re likely to last until I can afford a Tesla.
How about partnering with Toyota on reliability?
A BMW with Toyota-class reliability would at least mean that I wouldn’t give up something that I value by look at a German cars. OTOH, the business school cases I’ve read suggest that Toyota’s work-culture has as much to do with it as their engineering and their manufacturing.
The company that needs to do this even more is Volkswagen. They’re the people’s car, and the people aren’t trying to show off how rich they are (were) by owning a car that is expensive to maintain.
The day Toyota partners up with BMW to produce anything is the day I’ll cross of Toyota off my list.
Toyota is trying to shed it’s beigemobile image which is good. Otoh, BMW makes nothing but overpriced crapwagens. There is no need to dilute BRZ with extra fat, unreliability and huge markups.
Beigemobile reliability is what most of us want from a car, especially those of us over 50 for whom Japanese reliability came like a sunrise with trumpets in the 80′s/90′s.
Toyota understands the Bell curve better than anyone right now. I’m happy to be their average customer. And they’re huge enough that a little niche-dabbling like this BMW thing is innocuous.
I’m fine with beige, just so long as it comes with well engineered practicality.
Plus, Toyota sells so many cars that whatever they do will be the new beige.