alt Hacker NewsToyota is taking the Corolla electric
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Ugh. I saw the headline and I was hoping it would be an entry-level, low cost, highly analogue, "looks just like a normal car but electric" car.
Something very strange, at least for me, is that Toyota seems to be pushing the electric and hybrid motors very hard.
For example, here in Greece you can only find a Hybrid Yaris and Yaris cross. No diesel, no petrol. I know a lot of people that don't care about the premium they need to pay for th Hybrid and would prefer a normal petrol (or even diesel) car with manual transmission. Toyota seems to not care about these customers.
Why don't they put there great diesel or petrol motors to Yaris and get a lot of money and prefer to only push for Hybrid ?
I picked up a '25 Subaru Solterra (rebadged Toyota bz4X) for a decent lease deal and while I'm surprised how little I think about the EV parts the "car parts" are dreadful.
I really need to do a write-up on the dichotomy of EV things being good (charger works, no real battery QC issues, it's a RAV4-but-EV) while all of the shared ICE parts (anything in the software stack) are riddled with bugs or head-scratching defaults.
Overall, a fine car for me, but (as much as I do not like El*n) Telsa is so significantly beyond their offerings it's hard to overstate.
EDIT:
I forgot to add but I think the cost savings for EVs can be a wash, make sure you check the following:
1.) can't charge at home / live in an apartment.
1a.) If you do install a L2 charger at home, you will significantly reduce your cost savings.
2.) you rely on fast-chargers in any significant capacity.
3.) Double check the math on any lease, loan, etc. on new EVs vs. a beater gas car. Especially if you pay an EV tax in your state or country. (Post-COVID the $2K beater car seems to have gone extinct here...)
Why does every car manufacturer peddle these overly complex designs with massive displays, a futuristic aesthetic, etc?
People drive Corollas because they're cheap and reliable. Give me that with an electric motor.
Fossil cars are cooked and even Toyota is implicitly agreeing.
BYD makes cars that can charge in about 10 minutes and honestly deliver 500km+ of range. Every advantage that combustion based cars used to have has dissipated by now.
I literally want a 1995 Toyota Starlet, with its spartan interior, just with an electric drivetrain and a price tag that reflects. A standard 2 din screen with android auto is enough tech for me.
and all it took was two decades and millions of spend in anti-EV lobbying before they finally gave in, huh
(also kind of wild to me that an EV focused blog wouldn't mention this a single time since Toyota is (was?) arguably one of the staunchest and most stubborn anti-EV manufacturers out there)
The only reason I don't drive an EV is that I live in an apartment building that won't install chargers. Given this limitation, I drive a Corolla hybrid and it's great - it drives smoothly like an EV, and mileage is good (although war in the middle east isn't great for prices). If it was practical for me to have an EV, I would probably stay clear from Toyota. Even though they have a great reputation for reliability of their hybrids, they spent decades bad-mouthing EV and the bz4 is markedly less reliable than their hybrids. Hyundai Ioniq 6 is looking good I guess.
File under: headlines that should have appeared 10 years ago.
Given that the Prius made it's first appearance in 1997.
I was surprised to read the headline because this is going in a different direction than most car companies. For example, VW, Ford, GM, and others have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago. They discovered that most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them, and the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium.
Then I read the key quote and realized that Toyota isn't transforming the Corolla into an electric vehicle. They're simply going to offer an electric option. That's much less of an interesting headline, which explains why it wasn't chosen.
> “Whether it’s a battery EV, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, or internal combustion engine vehicle―whatever the power source―let’s make good-looking cars that everyone will want to drive!” Toyota’s CEO said at the Japan Mobility Show.
The lesson I take away from Tesla is going for the extremum: if you're going to be BEV, don't compromise. Toyota is ignoring that with a "platform that supports all powertrains, including pure electric".
Toyota has been very slow on the EV front, and it turns out that was a stroke of luck - demand has cooled off for EVs massively. (especially after the tax credits were killed in the US)
They make some of the best hybrids in existence. Their transmissions, due to being just a planetary gearbox, are essentially unbreakable and require no real maintenance. They're also very, very gas efficient.
It makes sense to keep doing what they know, when they do it well and the US lacks a lot of good EV infrastructure. (Not even fast charging stations, just like simple slow chargers around businesses and parking)
I regret going for a '23 Corolla gas instead of the hybrid, but at the time I was short on cash and didn't know as much about hybrids as I do now. In my mind it was more complicated and failure prone, which isn't the case.
> With over 57 million sold worldwide since it went on sale in 1966, the Toyota Corolla is widely considered the best-selling vehicle to date.
Is it or is it not the best-selling vehicle to date? Should be pretty simple to determine.
Literally just today I got delivery of a Corolla Sport. And would have bought a full EV one if it existed. Oh well!
Toyota wants to show nobody wants EVs by making EVs nobody wants.
The hybrid already gets 55mpg and the batteries are dirt cheap.
Its unfortunate that basically zero companies are working on generator only ICE engines with small packaging for range extended EVs.
Much better headline: Toyota is throwing every powertrain into the next Corolla
One neat thing about this announcement is we will finally have apples-to-apples ownership costs and reliability data.
The car is too low to the ground.
One of the things that really frustrated me about my Tesla Model 3 was how low it was. I would "look up" at Ford Fusions and other sedans on the road.
In contrast, my Model Y isn't an SUV. It's the height (and ground clearance) of what we used to call sedans, and really feels like a sedan instead of an SUV.
Judging from the prototype Toyota is clearly not serious about actually producing this ev version.
Why couldn't it just look like a Corolla
Will the Corolla EV cost significantly more than a Corolla Hybrid, and does the efficiency gain justify the premium for the average buyer?
Finally, I would say, and I'm very happy they have not succumbed to the incredibly stupid fashion of making steering wheels square instead of rounded.
The interesting part isn’t really that Toyota is making an electric Corolla, it’s that they’re apparently trying to keep one platform flexible enough for ICE, hybrid, PHEV and BEV
No thanks, Toyota. We'll keep running our 20 year old Corolla (9th generation - if you know, you know)
I just want my subcompacts back... I was mortified to find that the whole class had been abandoned in current year models across manufacturers :(
why don't Japanese auto-makers embrace the super+ hybrid that was embraced by Chinese auto makers. having electric motors and a small engine to constantly charge / drive the motors.
Japanese auto makers are already good at hybrid power trains, small engines.
surely extended range vehicles - 1000km+/700mi+ shouldn't be limited to Chinese brands only.
What about this is a Corolla? It looks like something from Cyberpunk 2077.
Possibly dumb question: What makes this a "Corolla" as opposed to a new car that happens to have the same brand name?
If they would bring a barebones electric station wagon to the US that would be heavenly.
Too late.
Us rusted on Toyota customers are moving to Chinese EVs
My family's last 6 cars were Toyota hybrids. But as a corporation, Toyota is notoriously anti-electric.
Tomorrow I am test driving a Xpeng G6, a Zeek X and a BYD Atto 3.
No more anti-electric Toyotas for me.
( And of course no cars from fascist countries like the USA, that goes without saying )
Just give us a normal Corolla with a battery and keep the physical climate knobs and normal door handles. Not every EV needs to look like an iPad on wheels from a 2015 sci-fi concept.
I'm excited about this because this means that I'll easily be able to rent an electric car again from the big rental companies that I can rely on being everywhere. It's currently a massive PITA to do this since they've cut EV inventory across the board so renting an EV car is always a gamble.
I'm holding on to my gas vehicle as long as I can because I really don't like the hybrid sad spaceship noise. I guess I could get it and disable the speaker but then that might void the warranty. The mechanic I go to tells me I can absolutely disable it and they will do it for me but they caution that it will void a warranty. I will continue to drive my old car until it falls apart.
An electric Corolla makes sense to me. The big question is the price. If it ends up costing much more than the hybrid, it’s going to be a harder sell. Curious what the price gap will be.
Finally, after decades of denial.
> The Japanese automaker is planning a drastic overhaul, including a sleek new design, high-tech interior, and updated platform.
Oh please no! I loved the old boring interiors with analog components
I look forward to it looking absolutely nothing like these concepts
They have waited this long because Japan currently doesn't have the electricity to support a shift to a majority EV situation.
About time! The Corolla is the perfect mass-market platform for an EV, glad they're finally going all in.
Those wheels are so far to the corner, I can’t see how the car drives after even a minor front corner hit.
> Toyota’s current chairman and former CEO, Akio Toyoda, warned [...] in July that the company is being forced to adapt, or “it cannot survive,”.
THIS is why I hate legacy auto companies. They don't want to delight customers. They must be dragged and forced to offer the bare minimum.
I have a Hyundai EV and it's the best vehicle I've ever driven. Japan and Detroit (et al) can suck it.
I want an electric Supra.
Nobody's making good lightweight superfast electric sportscars except for Kia (EV6 GT, 600hp). That car is amazing but the interior is super-cheap and Kia failed to "do the Acura thing" that made the NSX respectable (it isn't a "Honda NSX").
The Porsche Taycan is an absolute boat, an old man's car, the thing weighs a ton. Handling is terrible, center of mass is way above the axles. BMW electrics are the same. Mercedes doesn't even have an electric performance car. The German car companies are really just "mailing it in" when it comes to electic sportscars; they refuse to actually try to build a good one.
Tesla Model S isn't much better and is discontinued.
Other than the $250k+ upcoming roadster and the $60k EV6 GT (cheap cloth seats, no leather option, Kia badge) there's really nothing out there that handles well. Pretty huge gap in the market there.
> Toyota’s current chairman and former CEO, Akio Toyoda, warned in an exclusive interview with Japanese media NHK in July that the company is being forced to adapt, or “it cannot survive,” amid new competition and technology from China.
Finally run out of lobbying options, eh? Good luck with that.
Been waiting for this and a plug-in hybrid Corolla with at least 50 mile electric range. Would be a game changer.
Are the indicators visible from two cars back? IAre the reverse lights bigger than 1"*2", and can they be seen on a sunny day?
I do the same thing in London.
London is beautiful!
Cars that are designed from the ground up to be EVs tend to be much better than trying to shoehorn an EV into an ICE design.
The new Lexus ES350e, which comes in both hybrid and EV flavors, has been pretty universally panned as a mediocre EV [1]. Lexus anticipates that the vast majority of ES sales will be for the hybrid model, and I expect the same will be true of the Corolla.
The updated bZ and new bZ Woodland on the other hand, which are built as ground-up EVs on the e-TNGA platform, actually seem pretty decent. And I'm hopeful for the upcoming EV Highlander, too (although that will use a modified version of the TNGA-K platform).
I would prefer if Toyota just released a new EV model with roughly the same proportions as the Corolla, instead of going with the one-size-fits-all approach. But maybe they'll finally be able to get it right this time.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ97R1nhq4M