The writing is on the wall for our beloved huge trucks and SUVs. Though they’re perpetually booming in sales, fuel economy rules are getting tougher all over the world. What’s a car like the new Toyota Land Cruiser to do? Going hybrid, as it is now, may not be enough.
That leads off this summer Friday edition of our morning news roundup, and I hope you’re not working too hard while managing to stay cool somehow. Also on deck as you sail off into your weekend: more disappointing but unsurprising news about Apple CarPlay and General Motors, China’s auto giants rally behind a call for unity and autonomous cars get a huge win in California.
Land Cruiser Could Go PHEV, Electric, Even Hydrogen
Calling it now: the new 2024 Land Cruiser is gonna sell like crazy. (A real hot take, I know!) But it looks fantastic, is priced far more competitively than it’s been in decades and this time might not even annihilate its owners’ gas budgets because it packs a 2.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder hybrid motor.
But even Toyota admits that may not be enough. Not in “the age of carbon reduction,” as Automotive News puts it. So this Land Cruiser—which in typical Toyota truck fashion, is probably gonna stick around for a while—may see some even more aggressive moves in the way of alternate powertrains soon enough:
But Keita Moritsu, the vehicle’s chief engineer, says even that new integrated 48-hp electric motor and battery won’t be enough to see it through to 2030.
For future Land Cruiser updates, Toyota is already looking at plug-in hybrids, hydrogen fuel cells and even full-electric powertrains, Moritsu said this month in Tokyo where the Land Cruiser was unveiled.
[…] For Land Cruiser, a fuel cell system would have the advantage of being good for long-range driving and heavy towing, Moritsu said. That’s important for the SUV, which is a rural work horse from the Australian Outback to the Arabian Desert. The downside would be packaging the necessary cumbersome tanks, which are likely to eat into the SUV’s cavernous interior space for passengers and cargo.
Fuel cells also face a hurdle with limited refueling infrastructure.
Meanwhile, plug-in hybrids deliver good range and towing. And they are suitable for rural use because they can tap into the existing gasoline refueling network. But their engines still belch out carbon emissions, even though they might be cleaner than standard hybrids.
Also in typical Toyota fashion, Moritsu admits an all-electric Land Cruiser “might be a long shot for now.” The company says—and they have a good point here—that for the rugged and remote climates where many Land Cruisers operate, a full EV option may not make sense. But we also know Toyota’s been historically reluctant to go full EV, and I’m equally skeptical that a hydrogen version will really see the light of day. Even in Japan, people aren’t buying those.
But Toyota has insisted the future, at least in the near- and medium-term, will mean a mix of powertrains for different needs and markets; I do agree with that approach. In various iterations sold around the world, the Land Cruiser family serves Australian outback tour guides, UN medical workers, snorkel-loving off-road enthusiasts and people who will only ever drive it to get their kids at school. This SUV would be a very interesting test of Toyota’s thesis. And I know plenty of Land Cruiser fans who would be happy to go PHEV.
Autonomous Cars Score A Big Win In California
Now let’s shift gears and talk about a different kind of Cruise. As you’ve probably seen, autonomous cars of the robotaxi sort have been massively controversial in cities like San Francisco, Austin and elsewhere, because of the safety risks involved with testing a new technology on an unwilling public and the traffic jams that have resulted from system failures.
Yesterday, California’s Public Utilities Commission voted on a proposal to greatly expand the hours in which robotaxis operate in San Francisco. Right now it’s only a few hours a day; the changes would mean 24/7 robotaxi operation and likely open the floodgates to more automated cars there.
It was a contentious six-hour hearing, but in the end, it was a win for Cruise, Waymo and the rest. Here’s Reuters to explain:
The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday sided with the companies in the face of vigorous opposition from some residents and city agencies. Commissioners heard more than six hours of public comment from residents and special interest groups supporting or opposing the measure that would expand paid autonomous vehicle service.
[…] The companies now have permission to begin citywide paid taxi service at all hours of the day and have said they plan to deploy more cars as a result. They collectively have more than 500 autonomous vehicles already in operation.
Before approving the expansion, Commissioner John Reynolds addressed some of the public’s concerns. “While we don’t yet have the data to judge AVs against the standard that humans are setting, I do believe in the potential of this technology to increase safety on the roadway.”
And yes, this is a very big deal that will likely embolden robotaxi expansion elsewhere in America, including places less likely to go hard on regulations, like Texas:
The move is a critical step forward in regulating the robot cars, which Waymo, Cruise and others have been systematically rolling out in cities and states around the nation.
The approval “marks the true beginning of our commercial operations in San Francisco,” said Tekedra Mawakana, Waymo co-CEO, in a prepared statement. It puts “Cruise in a position to compete with traditional ridehail, and challenge an unsafe, inaccessible transportation status quo,” said Prashanthi Raman, Cruise vice president of global government affairs, in an emailed statement.
I tested a couple Waymo and Cruise cars earlier this summer and I came away considerably more impressed than I thought I’d be. The Waymo car, in particular, I found to be very safe, smart and more attentive than a good amount of New York taxi drivers I’ve ridden with (though we know how low that bar is.) But if I were a resident of one of these cities, I would not love this rollout either, especially with these cars still being giant public beta tests, essentially.
Either way, the tube is out of the toothpaste now.
BYD Calls For China To ‘Demolish The Old Legends’
But for the occasional Polestar or Volvo or Buick, we in America haven’t seen the Chinese EV revolution up close and personal quite yet. But other countries are seeing it right now. Even so, evidently China’s auto industry is still not “seen” as a global power player, not the way Germany and America and Japan and South Korea are.
As a nationalistic China rises in the world, BYD’s founder and chairman takes issue with this discrepancy and rallied the troops across his whole country. Via Reuters again:
A patriotic call by China’s bestselling automaker to band the industry together and “demolish the old legends” of the global market has gone viral, drawing both raves and a rebuke from a rival.
BYD used an event this week to mark a production milestone to celebrate a bigger purpose: the emergence of China as a global auto manufacturing powerhouse.
“I believe the time has come for Chinese brands,” BYD founder and chairman Wang Chuanfu said at the event, standing in front of an image of the logos of 12 major Chinese automakers.
“It’s an emotional need for the 1.4 billion Chinese people to see a Chinese brand becoming global.”
I think this matters here because there are still so many Chinese car brands, and even they (and the government admit) they won’t all make it and/or will need to consolidate at some point. What better umbrella to consolidate under than BYD’s, right? It has a stunning 37% of the share of the EV and hybrid market there.
As you’d expect, responses were positive to mixed:
“Salute to BYD!” said Li Xiang, CEO of Li Auto, who reposted the BYD video. “Let’s give a thumbs up to every participant in the new energy era!”
A senior executive of China’s Great Wall Motor (601633.SS) shot back that Chinese automakers should embrace the “reality of competition”.
“At such a critical moment, how can Chinese automakers be together?” Wang Yuanli, Great Wall Motor’s Chief Technology Officer, posted on his social media Weibo account on Friday. “If we only talk about being together but keep our bitterness in our hearts, it would be better to have the fight first.”
It’s also important to remember the Chinese brands have been in knife-fight price war with each other this year, which will speed this process along. Welcome to capitalism, my darlings! Not everybody gets to be a winner.
Cadillac Escalade IQ Won’t Get CarPlay, Shut Up Already
Enough about China! This is America, son, where we like our EVs huge, with enough range that you can weeks (if not years) without charging, opulent as a living room inside and deeply protective of GM’s profit margins and future revenue sources.
As such, The Verge has confirmed that GM’s making good on what it’s said: the Escalade IQ is one of the first new-generation EVs that will ditch Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
Despite the huge new 55-inch pillar-to-pillar infotainment screen in the new EV revealed yesterday, compatibility for the popular phone projection features is completely gone.
GM said earlier this year that it would restrict access to CarPlay and Android Auto in its future electric vehicles. In April, GM’s VP of software, Scott Miller, shared some reasons for the decision, including allowing more EV-centric functionality like battery preconditioning when navigating to a charging station.
That last line, I get. But I also think Google or Apple could help the OEMs figure it out. The problem is that there’s a real lack of confidence in the idea that GM can compete on a software level with those companies after their customers have become truly fond of those systems. All of the legacy OEMs are bad at software, generally speaking.
I’m not convinced, either, but we’ll see how this plays out.
Your Turn
Would you want 24/7 robotaxis in your town? Honestly, I’d love to see that shit happen here in New York City. Half of them would end up on blocks after a week, spray-painted with “ABOLISH ICE” for no discernable reason. We just can’t have nice things here.
I lived in Manhattan for 35 years. I have no doubt that pedestrians would simply walk out in front of a robotaxi knowing it would stop. The traffic jams would be epic.
Apparently you can flummox one of these cars by sticking a cone on the hood.
Do with that information what you will.
I will sing this song until the cows come home…we already have self driving cars that virtually never crash into pedestrians, are cheap to operate, and move hundreds of people at once. They’re called trains, this investment into self driving cars is so stupid and wasteful. Subways move millions of people safely to work everyday. No traffic, no insurance, low man power, no crazy prototype engineering, and best of all: it’s affordable to everyone. I love cars (obviously), but they are not the one size fits all solution to America’s transportation woes, especially in cities. I cannot imagine how California would be transformed if they banned cars in the cities and converted the streets for above ground rail and bus lanes.
If you think trains don’t require insurance and involve “low manpower”, that makes as much sense as investing your whole life savings into the Oakland A’s winning the World Series.
Not trying to be a dick here, but wow. There is no such thing as a commuter railroad that runs without taxpayer subsidies or even comes close to turning a profit. Sure a single ride might be affordable to a tourist in a given city, but the residents pay for it as well. Every person, every ride. Indirectly we all also pay for Amtrak. Just saying.
Everyone would leave faster than they already are. You have to not do any research at all to call on CA for trains; they’re the poster child of how to not do it right. Light Rail? VTA / SJ blew it. BART? A mess. The “High Speed Rail”? Will likely never run, and if they can get it built somehow they have neither the power or the tax base to keep it going. Just buy everyone an EV and go home, okay?
I, for one, cannot wait to be one of the first people to suffer an episode of violent diarrhea and projectile vomiting in the privacy of a robo taxi on my way home from a bar 6 hours away.
“California’s Public Utilities Commission voted … Right now it’s only a few hours a day; the changes would mean 24/7 robotaxi operation …”
Minor correction: Waymo currently operates 24/7 in SF, and Cruise operates 10p to 5:30a. The Public Utilities Commission decision was primarily to allow these companies to **charge fares** for the rides — up til now they have all been free. Cruise also modified their operating scope to cover 24/7. It’s a big step forward in terms of showing it’s a real business and not a research project for GM and Google.
Excuse me but what kind of ass-backwards argumentation is that? As somebody in the medical field, I can’t help but imagine Pfizer or Bayer or whoever going “we don’t yet have the data to judge leeches against the standard that antibiotics are setting, but we believe in the potential of those little suckers, so we’re just gonna go ahead and try them out for a bit, see how it turns out.”
Forget an electric Land Cruiser. I would like mine with a turbo diesel and a manual transmission, please!
The Land Cruiser simply needs to be tough, capable, and reliable like they’ve always been.
BYD, Geely, and Chery need to sell more cars in the US. They can put the gougers in their fucking place. They can step in and offer brand new cars at fair prices. A sub-10k car, and plenty of cars under 20k. Petty shit like tariffs don’t stop them. They can undercut ANYBODY.
Yeah, the Chinese play dirty, but their competitors deserve it at this point. Fuck their trimflation and forced uptrading. People can’t afford new cars anymore, stuck buying used.
I’d like to see Indian and Latin American-market cars sold here too.
What about functioning, clean public transportation? Yeah it doesn’t work for everyone, everywhere, but it works for most people in the cities that these robotaxis are being trialed in. For however many billions we’ve spent on these startups, we could have clean, modern buses and lightrails and money left over to keep them clean and give the drivers a good wage.
I just paid $30 for a lyft from my house to the airport to fly to Seattle where it costs $5 to go from SeaTac to downtown via the lightrail.
There is one sure-fire way to guarantee the success of autonomous vehicles in traffic dense cities: ban the use of human-piloted private vehicles. Think this can’t happen?
Are there that many actual automotive brands in China or are there really just one or two model lineups made in the same place sold under hundreds of disposable “brand” names like almost everything else I see from there? What the hell, the technology is stolen anyway, so who cares what the name is!
Not trying to be an utter cynic here but does it really matter if we want robo-cars or not? Companies are going to continue to march forward in the name of ‘progress’ even if it’s to the detriment of many.
Autonomous vehicles are coming because companies can eliminate paying employees and the general public won’t care as long as they can get on whatever social media site and like trivial shit from their friends while their little appliance takes them to work.
I don’t understand the push to make taxis in dense cities the first application of automation.
It seems like semis on the highway, which don’t deal with city traffic or pedestrians, which can run a single route at steady speeds, which don’t need to be used by members of the public, and which operate in a more lucrative industry would be infinitely better suited for automation first.
Have a depot at each end of a route where drivers can take over for local deliveries, and turn the computer on for the highway run.
Automated semis on highways with a depot on each end is just a more complicated and less efficient train.
There would be no additional steps vs. the existing system except for 5 minutes to allow a driver to get on or off for the local part of the route.
There are already depots or warehouses where truck cargo is loaded and unloaded, usually close to major highways. Trucking already has well-known upsides and downsides vs. rail, and those wouldn’t change if the longest, most boring part of the route was automated.
The only real benefit would be labor cost, which frankly is one of the cheaper parts of OTR. As the drivers are treated like trash. I have a friend who works for Waymo, and he tells me that freeway driving is far more complicated for a program due to drivers various in speed against posted speed limits and unpredictability with multiple lanes. Freeway on ramps are a nightmare due to rapid acceleration into a changing landscape with multiple often contradictory signs.
I assume the only reason any of this self-driving stuff exists is to save on labor costs somewhere.
If there are non-obvious reasons that highway driving isn’t easy for a computer to handle, like you point out, then maybe that explains why less work is going into it.
My mind jumped immediately to your last point as I read your second paragraph. The other side of the coin of depots like that is land usage, and do we want to use space for that?
(At this point, I’m just wondering aloud, because I don’t have a set opinion on this yet.)
I used to work “next door” to a FedEx facility. We were close to an airport, and relatively close to the freeway, though it was still at least 2 miles one-way to the closest access. Obviously, the use of a depot is going to mean setting aside land, but where? Close to those interchanges that are already in a relatively built-up area, but have freeway access all the way? On the outskirts of the city, that soon enough will no longer be outskirts? Or should the facilities themselves move out so the trucks are more or less “direct,” and then local trucks take it from there?
This transition is going to be forced, and, like so many other things in this world right now, is going to be fascinating to watch unfold “live and in person.”
I maybe should have used a different word, because “depot” implies something large and/or new, when it wouldn’t need to be any more than a secure parking lot where drivers can “pick up” a parked long haul and complete the local part, then drop it off again when it’s ready to make the highway run. Hell, enough sites like that probably exist already.
Why not both?
Better yet autonomous tractors. slow speed, highly repeatable activity and extremely low human population density. Monarch is the only startup I can think of in the ev autonomous tractor game. Better them than JD that wants to keep farm equipment as expensive as possible & make it illegal for farmers to repair their own equipment themselves
https://www.monarchtractor.com/
The reason GM is ditching carplay is really quite simple – They won’t own the data unless they own the OS.
Yep. They don’t care if you have a lower quality end-user experience with their native system, not as long as they get all that sweet, sweet data.
I don’t want to see robotaxis for two reasons:
Driving is full of edge cases, which is a thing computers are bad at. Something with rules that every participant is fully following, I expect a computer to win. Animals, children, other drivers, construction, and weather is a lot of context that humans intuitively understand change the rules.
It will almost assuredly not help anyone except whoever is going to profit from it. Public transit will likely continue to be ignored and robotaxis will be considered the replacement. Drivers will lose jobs. People will likely be priced out by design. Cleaning up after previous customers won’t happen when needed. We see how Uber/Lyft screw drivers and customers already, so their robotaxis will absolutely continue that trend.
I had not thought about the cleaning angle. That should have been part of the negotiations: “Robotaxis can be allowed 24/7, but they must have their interiors lit by blacklight the entire time.”
I don’t mind the ethos of the iForceMax drivetrain that it’s more about mild hybridization and torque fill, but Toyota has room to do more. The wrangler PHEV is a good example: It’s the same layout, but Jeep makes it work as a PHEV where Toyota doesn’t. The Prime models are VERY popular and people would happily pay Toyota for a Prime Land Cruiser. All you have to do is change your small NiMH battery for a lithium one of sufficient capacity and you are there. Drop the lift back and make it barn doors, put the spare on the outside and put the new battery where the spare went.
Toyota needs to try a little harder to bring more Prime models to more people. The waitlist for anything Prime right now is huge indicating a demand. Technology isn’t Toyota’s problem.
(You don’t need barn doors to put the spare on the back. Early 90’s 4Runners did this.)
Robocars are one step closer to Robocops. I’ve seen Robocop, I ain’t trying to live that life. The Amish were right. Destroy the machines. Reject modernity return to the time Saab existed.
Yes. The mid 90’s were the closest to perfection that society ever achieved. It has all been downhill since Y2K.
I’d say the 80’s (I may only be focused on the awesome music/movies) but yeah 90’s too…and yep, downhill since Y2K- I’ve been saying this too ever since
I’m John Connor, and I approve this message.
You must restart Saab to stop Skynet. You should probably get on that.
I’d buy that for a dollar!
I do believe the future we got isn’t “hoverboards” but actually “the politics of Robocop, with the climate of Blade Runner.”
Hell yeah
I don’t really see the point of the Waymo stuff. How can it be cheaper for the rider than Uber? That’s really all I care about if I use it in my neck of the woods which is relatively quiet. Even if it is cheaper, I guess (?) I wouldn’t mind it, but I’m certainly not hoping for it to happen. I don’t trust the tech.
Even if the tech was perfected, trusting one in Manhattan or taking me to JFK or LGA…not a f’n chance. I know NYC well enough that every ride would be a white-knuckle potential kamikaze mission. Also PG, you are spot on that they are gonna get trashed in no time. You think that one of those is gonna survive 30 minutes in the Bronx or East New York? Those are some steep odds right there. I can already see the monumental amount of real (and made-up) lawsuits stemming from bicyclists, pedestrians, other drivers etc. Shit, I can see them getting sued by people with breathing issues/allegies caused by the odor of pot inside, or hell, even someone eating peanuts on the ride before. I mean, look how people treat the subway cars…they are filthy and often damaged by people that do it on purpose for fun.
It’s a bad idea.
I live in a Chicago suburb, here Uber is not even cheaper than regular cabs. An airport taxi ride to/from O’Hare is about 20-50% cheaper than Uber, and even if it wasn’t I’d still pick a cab over contributing to the scam that is Uber.
Not to mention the cab driver is a lot more likely to get me where I’m going safely and on time.
It’s been about a year so things may have changed, but Uber is the cheapest way to go here. Somewhere around $1-$1.75 a minute/mile. Car services charge much more. It works out to $35-$55 a ride v. $65-$75. So, basically the inverse of Chicago…
Same here in the DC area. My last three trips from the airport back home I have used taxis because the Uber/Lyft fares were 20-30% higher. I’ve also had more bad experiences with drivers not arriving on Uber. They accept the ride and then I see them sitting in one location and not moving for 10-15 minutes.
I think I actually know why they don’t move at the airport. It was a common practice that was spread on their Reddit forum. Drivers accept a ride to keep their “averages” up, then cancel saying there was no fare in sight. They keep churning requests until they get one that is either a high fare or one that is heading in their preferred local area for fares or close to home. I think Uber did something about it, but this is all second-hand info that a driver told me.
The genius of Uber is for business travel. One app works all over the USA and in many parts of the world, so you never have to worry about adding some crappy local app for a city. If the taxi consortiums had used the Uber app as it was originally pitched things would be peachy. They got greedy, and now here we are.
Any competent human being with adequate training that is fully engaged and undistracted will always be safer at driving than a computer. The problem is, humans are rarely any of those things all the time and no one is all of those things all the time. Given how dysfunctional we are, I think robot taxis would be the safest option, but I don’t think it will ever be mainstream due to company liability and public perception. Every time a self driving car is in a wreck, it makes the news. My elderly parents had multiple minor accidents in a short time, and it took time for me and my sister to even find out about them. If an individual causes an accident, they might get sued, but the damages are going to be limited. Sue a corporation, and the damages could be far more, even if the negligence was far less.
I imagine something similar was once said about playing chess.
I don’t know how long the self-driving thing will take, and I don’t necessarily welcome it, but betting against technological progress or saying “this is a skill humans will always do better at” is generally a losing proposition.
Chess is a very different thing though because it’s a closed system with a finite set of fixed rules. Driving is basically none of that.
While I’m certainly at risk of being a Luddite and completely wrong, I’m very dubious of anything based on machine learning being used in safety critical areas. From the articles and videos I’ve seen, we don’t even really understand why systems like ChatGPT work so well, which makes it hard to iterate on them to fix the problems they have. Everyone is just trusting that technology is going to fix it somehow, which feels more like religion than science to me. Since I’m not a “Jesus take the wheel” person I’m not likely to be a “ChatGPT take the wheel” one either.
(For the record, I know ChatGPT has nothing to do with autonomous vehicles, but it’s the machine learning system most people are familiar with and they all have similar problems)
If it never happens, then it never happens.
All I’m saying is, if it really doesn’t, it will be one of the first times us meatsacks have pushed back on our silicon betters.
“Competent human being”
…have you taken a look around recently? There isn’t exactly a surplus of those laying around…
I feel like winter weather is the single greatest obstacle to this tech. They started in SF because of reliable nearly perfect weather full time. But getting them to be safe and reliable in Denver in December seems like a whole other level of difficult.
Humans have plenty of issues with winter weather too. I think though RFID road reflectors would go a long way to helping an autonomous car stay in its lane even if the road is buried in snow or obscured by rain.
This has been something I’ve mentioned over and over in various places, but it’s not out there yet.
Every reflector, every road sign, every orange barrel and every concrete barrier and more should have RFID. Every streetlight and traffic meter, too.
The database of their locations would be constantly modified with cumulative updates from every single vehicle passing by.
Not only would the system know where the construction zone is, it would know when a barrel is a few inches out from where it was originally placed.
Then you could combine all this with vertical deflection data from shock absorbers in the vehicles and you could also have a detailed map of every pothole and road defect on every road in the world.
Any competent human being with adequate training that is fully engaged and undistracted will always* be safer at driving than a computer.
* for a couple/few decades.
The problem with humans is even at their very best they are limited by human senses. They can’t see outside of the visible spectrum, they have no sonor, limited hearing, no sense of smell to speak of, no telepathy, no built in compass, no built in GPS etc.
Robots OTOH can see xrays and microwaves, can sonor, telepathy (RF communication), LIDAR, GPS, compass and have a host of other inputs a human can only access through translation of those robot sensory inputs through the aforementioned limited human senses e.g. screens, gauges and so on. Accessing those inputs by the human driver is itself is a distraction, taking attention off the road.
A driving robot fully integrated with all the other driving robots as well as street smart sensor array (e.g. lightpost cameras, traffic light timings, road condition reports, parking space vacancies, etc) will have a massively better awareness of its environment a human driver can barely comprehend with no need to ever remove attention from the road.
So less than 2 hours ago, for the 6th time in 4.5 years, a vehicle crashed into a curb or utility pole (pole this time — 4 out of 6) within a two block radius, because the driver was looking at their phone.
Not hypothetical. Literally watched it happen outside my window. Perfect summer day, bone dry road, arrow straight, no other vehicle. Looking down, right into the pole at 25, with the Ford Fusion rotating about 60 degrees before it stopped.
If eventually — I do not expect soon, but eventually — if fewer of these people who’d rather not be driving are no longer half-operating it behind the wheel, I’ll welcome it. Though if it happens before 2040, I’ll be surprised.
a PHEV Land Cruiser…take my money!
I would put down a deposit tomorrow
ditto
And mine!
Toyota could easily sell triple the number of PHEV models if they simple built enough of them. They could make a Land Cruiser/Tacoma/4Runner Prime tomorrow and it would sell out instantly and the fact that they haven’t is evidence that Toyota doesn’t have an engineering problem, it has a supply problem.
If they made a LC-Prime today, I would buy one in 20 years time when the prices are down 30% but before they go up 60%.
There is an LC500 hybrid, FWIW. I couldn’t live with myself if I skipped a 5 liter NA V8 that revs to 7300 but they make them and they seem to sell in similar numbers to the V8. For some reason they seem to sell for the same money as well, although they’re way more likely to depreciate later on.
The biggest problem with the LC500 hybrid is that it’s not a PHEV. Just like most other Toyota hybrids. Early to the game, but very late to understand what wins.
Robocars from several companies have been undergoing testing here in Las Vegas for several years now, and the locals know to steer clear of them like the plague. Humans know when it makes sense to exceed the speed limit, and don’t like being stuck behind robocars doing 24.9mph in a 25 zone.
As for the Land Cruiser and its powertrain, nobody knows the future and everyone is just giving their best guesses. But as a side note, I’m thinking/hoping that the new Land Cruiser is going to be the basis of Toyota’s Maverick fighter.
Seems like any vehicle built on that frame is going to be the size of a tacoma. And isn’t the land cruiser body on frame? The rumored corolla based pickup is what would be a maverick fighter.
I’d love to see Robotaxis here in DC. There is absolutely no way in goddamn hell that they’d be more dangerous than the taxi and rideshare drivers that already terrorize this city. The maneuvers that I see cabs in particular pull are some of the most egregious examples of dangerous driving that I see in a city that’s famous for an abundance of dangerous driving.
If the EV robots are safer, which is a low bar, then sure….in just about any other city I’d say that I’d prefer people just use public transit instead but seeing as ours is so neglected, dysfunctional, and outright dangerous I really can’t be mad that so many people prefer alternatives. I’m very pro transit in general but when you have places to be and you can’t rely on it to get you to them safely and in a timely manner then what else can you do?
Our local government is literally a scam at this point anyway…each administration fills all the executive roles with a bunch of their friends and family members, everyone with connections gets to ride the gravy train for a few years, local institutions rot, all the government contracts go to friends and family members of the administration which leads to nothing getting done…lather, rinse, repeat.
Wait what are we talking about again? Anyway I’m excited that the base Land Cruiser engine is a hybrid and the fact that there aren’t more hybrid/PHEV family haulers is a little inexcusable to me. There is no hybrid, electric, or PHEV option when it comes to the Pilot, Telluride/Palisade, Traverse/Tahoe, Odyssey, and more. It’s ridiculous and most of those vehicles get city MPG in the teens. In 2023!
Of all of the applications for electrification this particular segment seems like one of the most appropriate to me. No one is driving these cars like a lunatic anyway and what family doesn’t want to save money on gas? Hybrid or PHEV ALL OF THESE, today. Yesterday would have been preferable.
That being said we’ll have to wait and see what this powertrain is actually like, because Toyota’s iForce Max stuff doesn’t really even improve fuel economy at all in its current applications. Publications have been getting essentially the exact same mileage out of the twin turbo hybrid V6 that its ICE counterparts get, and I’m worried that Toyota has been so mum on how this engine does despite the fact that we’ve known it exists since the Taco announcement.
I have a feeling that if it was a gas miser we’d have known about it by now, but oh well. I think when the wife and I eventually shop for her next car/our eventual hauler electrification is going to be a non-negotiable for us. Hybrids and PHEVs only.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like a PHEV drivetrain could be great for off road capabilities in vehicles like Land Cruisers, too. With a strong set of motors (and controllers) you can implement a “crawl mode” and a “hill descent mode” without needing a low range gearbox.
This is far from my area of expertise, hopefully David Tracy or Mercedes can chime in 🙂
I feel like having an extremely complicated drivetrain breakdown far from civilization would not be ideal.
..unless by “off road” you mean the mall parking lot
Counterpoint: depending on how it breaks down and how the PHEV is set up, one drivetrain breaking down still leaves you with the other to get home.
Cars have steadily been getting more complex since the beginning. Paradoxically they’ve also gotten a LOT more reliable.
Is the IQ’s infotainment built on Android Automotive? I admittedly have not driven a newer car, like a Tesla, that doesn’t have AA/CP, so I don’t know how deep the integration goes with a phone now. Back in the day, Bluetooth couldn’t really do any more than seeing who was calling or changing to the next track. In my Audi, if I don’t connect to AA, scrolling my contacts takes ages, there’s no real search, and even navigating a Spotify playlist is clunky AF over Bluetooth. The Google Assistant and Siri both suck, yet are streets ahead of the built-in voice controls of any car I’ve ever driven. With AA, I can summon the Assistant and say “navigate to Mom’s house” or Call O’Reilly Auto Parts, and it will just do it. It doesn’t ask Which O’Reilly, it calls the one closest to me, it doesn’t navigate to a restaurant 1,000 miles away called “Mom’s House”, it takes me to the address stored in my moms contact card. I couldn’t imagine spending $130k on a car that couldn’t do basic stuff like that. Even if it is built on Android Automotive and has a similar integration w/ the phone to AA/CP, you’re still gonna end up with subscriptions for things those two provide for free, like weather apps and live traffic (exactly how GM wants it). You’re also going to force a whole bunch of people on Team Apple to share a ton of data with Google, like their contacts, which they probably won’t want to do if they aren’t already doing that.
GM could have gone one of two ways…Adopting the newer CP where it has deeper integration w/ the car, allowing you change car settings such as climate through CP, or ditching AA/CP altogether. I think consumer wise they made the wrong choice, but they’ll still come out on top through subscriptions and selling of your data.
The only subscription you would need is a data plan. Maps, traffic are all via google the same way that they would be on a phone. It has the google play store the same as an android phone (albeit limited to apps made for android automotive, but still those limits are by google not GM)
The real concern is yes, the privacy if you are an Apple only user. Plus the cost of the data plan
I’m grateful to Toyota; amidst all the naysayers, they’re still diligently plugging away at their hydrogen dreams. I’ll let them do all the work so I can say “told ya so” when hydrogen becomes a viable thing.
I really see the appeal of Hydrogen but man it has some serious challenges. Good on them for throwing $$$$$$ at it.
All I can really say about hydrogen is that it is absolutely viable and in far wider use than people have the first clue about. North America and consumer cars is not the only market for things.
It will, in all likelihood, become the fuel of choice for aerospace applications soon. SAF is already going to become mandated in the next 10 years for commercial operations, and the energy density advantage of LH2 is simply too good to pass up. Also, unlike basically every other industry aerospace already has experience with LH2 tankage and fueling, and is willing to shell out for the expensive hardware it requires in exchange for the performance benefits.
Sure if airlines are willing to accept far less capable aircraft.
Liquid hydrogen needs 4x the storage volume of jet fuel and the tanks need to be spherical or soup can cylinder shaped. they also need a lot of insulation. That’s going to cut into cargo space.
The Soviets experimented with this back in the late 1980s with a modified Tu154. This is as close an apples to apples comparison as I know of.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bIGV_TX4S8c/TX7uVtFTtNI/AAAAAAAAA_E/twKFrYkYhq0/s1600/Tupolev%2BTu-156.jpg
Only one engine (RHS) was modified for hydrogen, the other two were kept tuned for jet fuel. The LN2 tank took up at least 1/3 of the passenger compartment. This was the most efficient way to store the enormous volume needed. IIRC the range of this aircraft on hydrogen (with one engine) was about 900 nm vs about 2700 km on an unmodified aircraft with jet fuel.
Now you might argue that was decades ago and technology and aircraft design has greatly improved from 1980s Soviet tech. That is true, HOWEVER any advances in aircraft design not specifically for hydrogen will also work for jet fuel. Apples to apples jet fuel will always outperform hydrogen. As such I have zero faith we will ever see commercial hydrogen aircraft in use.
Citation needed. Yes, hydrogen is used today, but my understanding is that almost all of it comes from fossil fuels, which is not viable as a clean source of energy for cars. Truly clean hydrogen has an enormous infrastructure problem that makes the already large infrastructure problems of EVs look simple by comparison.
Please allow me to laugh harder at your statement.
H2 is a chase for government subsidies and is also a way for fossil fuel companies to get them. It’s greenwashing to distract from the real solutions that leave the less forward-thinking fossil fuel companies out of the picture.
H2 is almost untransportable in bulk, so it needs to be generated on site. A plant to produce enough for under 200 vehicles a day (if they arrive evenly spaced over a 24 hour period) is well over $3 million. It’s no wonder the prices have jumped to $30 a kilogram.
It also takes a longer time between each successive vehicle to be ready for the next, so if there’s a line at the fueling station, the last person is getting screwed.
The huge energy inputs to produce and compress H2 simply aren’t going away. And you can’t store it for long because it leaks out as produced, in the compressors and even the best and most expensive storage containers.
Look up the embrittlement of the metals it touches. Vehicles vibrate as they move. Care to replace most of your fuel system every 8 years or so? And that’s about the same time frame in which the large integrated tanks have to be recertified and/or replaced. And any vehicle that loses 5% of its fuel every month to leakage is not acceptable for mainstream use.
Any ONE of these factors (which are just a few of the great many that exist) would keep H2 from being mainstream for at least another 20 or more years.
I’d love to be wrong, but H2 is just another energy storage method, and not a very good one when compared batteries and even synthetic room temperature liquid fuels.
Containment is the biggest issue I can imagine with Hydrogen. How do you stop leakage when the molecules are so tiny they can literally slip between the atoms in whatever material your container is made of?
Containment IS a big problem for LH2. You either need to keep it at near absolute zero temps or periodically vent the tank. The first solution requires energy for refrigeration presumably from the hydrogen itself. I imagine that’s going to cut into range. The second will result in an empty tank in a bit under 2 weeks. Either way the insulation and hardware required makes these tanks large and heavy.
Compressed hydrogen is better as existing tanks for automotive use can hold over 10k psi. As the pressure drops with use the tanks have an easier time holding onto what’s left. Even so those tanks are huge and heavy. The tanks in the 1st gen Mirai were 193 lbs with an internal volume of 32 gallons. Newer tanks AFAIK are no better. They are also very limited in the shapes they can take vs pretty much any shape for a liquid container.
The big hope for hydrogen storage is zeolites. Basically a metallic sponge that hydrogen sticks to and in the process it shrinks tremendously (the otherwise volumous molecular orbits contract) so more can be packed in at a lower pressure. A zeolite tank can hold more hydrogen at 500 psi than the same tank without the zeolite at far higher pressures.
The problems IIRC are:
Reversibility: It takes energy to kick the hydrogen off the zeolite surface. IMO this might be solvable with waste heat from the ICE or FC. I don’t know enough to say with conviction though.
Longevity: The zeolites to date have a very limited number of useful cycles, far to few to be commercially useful.
Zeolites have been studied for hydrogen storage for decades without a whole lot of real progress so I’m not holding my breath. It MIGHT be possible to set up a cylinder exchange system to economically recycle the zeolite after each use. Again though I’m not holding my breath
“H2 is almost untransportable in bulk, so it needs to be generated on site”
Almost but not quite.
Hydrogen CAN be transported in existing pipelines, including NG piplines when mixed with natural gas at 1℅ to 30%:
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-08/hyblend-tech-summary.pdf
Ships can transport hydrogen as they can NG. Kawasaki built just such a ship to bring hydrogen from Australia to Japan
https://newatlas.com/marine/kawasaki-worlds-first-liquid-hydrogen-transport-ship/
(Just ignore the inconvenient truth that hydrogen is being generated from filthy brown coal)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-19/hydrogen-coal-emissions-research/101080924
“The huge energy inputs to produce and compress H2 simply aren’t going away.”
True pending a zeolite breakthrough but that doesn’t matter if that energy is renewable surplus and would be lost anyway. There are better uses for such hydrogen than transportation though like industry.
“It also takes a longer time between each successive vehicle to be ready for the next, so if there’s a line at the fueling station, the last person is getting screwed.”
“Care to replace most of your fuel system every 8 years or so?”
Links please. I’ve looked myself and found no schedule for replacing the tanks on any modern HFV nor any info on fueling delays aside from nozzle icing.
“even synthetic room temperature liquid fuels.”
Those use hydrogen as a reagent so those are even less efficient.
Oh? Care to post some links?
Good luck with that.
Without CarPlay, I hope buyers enjoy the huge new 55-inch pillar-to-pillar INFOTORTURE screen…
It will automatically sync with the local “EV charging TV”, which will be like those annoying gas station TVs.
Second button down on the right usually mutes them. It’s worth a try anyway. I’ve never had the gas stop flowing while pushing the buttons when filling up.