RE:RE:Toyota Busts The Car Microchip ShortageDon't underestimate Toyota https://www.motortrend.com/news/toyota-battery-bev-hev-solid-state-future-investment/ quote=Yasch22]Grab bag of thoughts and questions generated by this story.
1. Congrats to Toyota for figuring out how to deal with the chip shortage, although we don't know exactly how they did it. Toyota has done a lot of great things to become Emperors of ICE and Hybrid. It's been such a long hard journey to get there ... but now everyone is saying that full battery EVs will dominate sales in 5 years, and I can sympathize with Toyota's lobbying and fudding to delay the transition.
2. Tesla has also overcome the chip shortage, but in this case we do know how they did it.
Click for link. They rewrote software on a supply of alternative chips, and managed to do the re-coding inside of a few weeks.
3. Cathie Wood of ARK and a few others suspect the chip shortage has been used at times as an excuse for anemic ICE sales. That is, they know chip supply is a real issue, but feel that some of the OEMs have been using it as a crutch.
4. Toyota will be at or near "Top Dog" amongst all the traditional OEMs in the coming year with roughly 10 to 11m sales. You have to wonder if & when the decline will start, given Toyota's very slow start in developing EVs. From a different perspective, it's possible that Toyota is playing a long and clever game. That is, they may have decided to add to their present position of strength with ICE cars as the decade wears on, while other OEMs struggle with the toggle of decreasing ICE plus increasing EV sales.
5. If Toyota stays b*lls to the wall on ICE, they could continue making outsized profits for several years longer than the competition, and THEN using a strong balance sheet to go b*lls to the wall on EVs. The transition to EVs could also be stretched out by increased vehicle consumption worldwide. It has held steady for a long time at 75 to 90m per annum, but improved living conditions in developing countries could increase car ownership.
[/quote]