Anti.  We are seeing a lot of purist posts now.  That was quite predictable.  With Toyota just 1 day away from revealing their first BEV built on a new dedicated platform, they only have 1 day left to spin lies about Toyota being behind.  That claim becomes far more difficult once there is an actual name & visual to associate with status.  Their vague generalizations fall apart tomorrow.  Remember, Volt originated from hope but then transformed to hype.  Antagonists are well aware of how an idea can dominate.  They know substance isn't required.  Soon, some substance will be available.  That add to the merit Toyota has already earned for reliability & trust.  So naturally, their next step is to attack the source.  In this case: "Toyota still has to get rid of the anti-electric CEO, where oh where is that board of directors?"  One last attempt to feed the narrative.  It won't work... and they know it.  Nonetheless, an attempt is made anyway.  I pointed out:  Sounds similar to the spin we got back in 2008, when what the CEO actually said was totally ignored and instead replaced with a narrative.  He said lithium batteries were still too expensive to use for plug-in vehicles.  (He was proven correct too.)  Antagonists pretended he was afraid of the fire risk and repeated that claim endlessly.  It was a desperate effort to misrepresent.  Now the antagonists have become lazy, not even bothering to spread a false message.  They just label him as "anti" and declare victory.  Fortunately, that lack of critical thinking is obvious.  The cold, hard reality of how difficult it actually is to break the status quo becomes undeniable at some point.  No amount of spin can overcome that.

Priorities.  It just never ends.  They keep providing confirmation of denial and really messed up priorities.  But when it comes to personal attacks, what do they expect to accomplish?  A victory online doesn't achieve anything.  It has and always will be about sales.  Green praise isn't how you reduce emissions & consumption... which can be quite dull and unrewarding.  Enthusiasts don't get it though... hence being enthusiasts, rather than supporters.  A supporter will suck it up and accept what is needed to achieve change.  An enthusiast will spread hype to stir hope, betting their gamble will pay off.  It almost never does.  This is how I attempted to wrap up the ongoing rants:  Call it whatever you want, it's still an intentional limiting of scope regardless of the label.  The real tell is how that effort continues, even when it is pointed out.  Toyota has been successfully phasing out traditional vehicles. 2 are entirely hybrid now (Sienna & Venza).  RAV4 reaching 26% shows the strong progress.  It's an effort to set the stage for plugs.  Toyota's design offers an easy & profit means of delivering that.  Ranting won't change that fact.  Lying about my employment, claiming I work for Toyota, won't either.  Their fleet is moving forward.  Too bad if their method is unacceptable for enthusiasts.  Those low-hanging fruit sales don't represent mainstream anyway.  Reaching ordinary consumers is far more difficult... which Toyota understands well.  Very real change is happening on dealer's lots.  Calling that "inactivity" is an act of denial.  Dealership resistance is fierce.  Refusing to address that problem by shooting the messenger reveals messed up priorities.

Deep Denial.  That's always part of the nonsense I have to deal with.  What's new though is the profanity.  This particular website isn't moderating posters, calling out what many would consider offensive.  It's the next stage of problem for a struggling media outlet... a milestone many come to regret.  That's when loyal participants start to leave.  Most people are not willing to put up with vulgar posts.  With so many other online choices, it's easy to go elsewhere.  I'm sticking around for obvious reasons.  This is where some of the best feedback and learning opportunities come from.  For example: "My 2006 Prius, after ~180,000 miles, morphed into a 2020 Ioniq EV.  Mostly because the obstinate f$%kheads at Toyota didn't have anything compelling to offer.  14 years of treading water and zero innovation."  That's loaded with all kinds of problems.  Keeping a vehicle for that many years & miles provides a heck of an endorsement for reliability.  Choosing that particular vehicle as a replacement is especially ironic.  Offering only 170 miles isn't what anyone on that blog would consider compelling.  As for the imply of no progress, that's just plain stupid.  Who is he trying to convince?  I found it all absurd and kept my reply brief:  Zero innovation?  That's some rather serious denial.  From 2006 to 2020, Toyota's tech evolved from a midsize hatchback delivering 46 MPG to a large SUV with AWD and 2,500-pound towing delivering 42 miles of EV.

Outright Lies.  It's really difficult to know how to best respond to outright lies, especially when you are not aware of how poorly the poster is.  Sometimes, they are clueless.  Of course, you find out right away if they repeat it afterward.  In this case, it was: "What EV tech?  They have a badge engineered BEV in China because they are unable to produce one themselves."  Since anything with a plug is a "hybrid" can't possibly deliver an all-electric drive is how they see the world, arguing is rather pointless.  Some never makes the leap to understand how the tech actually operates.  In this case, I said:  Info that's outdated & incomplete helps to tell the story of how narratives reinforced false realities.  There have been badging models in the past, but those are in addition to... not instead of.  Here's the true situation.  Mirai is what enthusiasts complain about, full EV propulsion supposedly wasted on a FCEV platform. Then there's Prius & RAV4 Prime, which deliver full EV propulsion using PHEV platforms.  Added recently to the diversification effort has been CH-R and UX300e models of BEV.  All these share the same EV tech built by Toyota.  It's a business approach to help bring about economy-of-scale benefits faster.  This is why claims online hold little merit.  Enthusiasts shoot themselves in the foot by not posting accurate info.  Whether intentional or mistaken, it's wrong.

Bring On The Attacks.  The same old nonsense was indeed the theme today.  The insults & belittling, along with blatant mislead attempts, were all par for the course... very predictable.  I fired back with:  Impatience & Disinterest for the process to reach mainstream consumers is what separates an enthusiast from a supporter.  It's been the same way for the past 20 years. You see the market from an early-adopter perspective.  That's fine.  But telling us to "shove it" shows a complete lack of anything constructive.  Fortunately, the business world doesn't operate based on attitude like that.  This is why Toyota has thrived in the face of "inactivity" narratives.  They know how to reach their loyal customers.  They find ways to make the technology simple to understand and easy to adopt.  They also make it profitable.  What is most telling though is the cherry-picking of RAV4 data, the numbers you excluded. 26% of those sold here last year where hybrid models.  Toyota's supposed inactivity is really an effort to aggressively phaseout traditional offerings.  That's proving to their biggest barrier... their own dealers... that change is not something to be feared.  We all see you turning a blind eye to the other legacy automakers by focusing on Tesla instead.  No amount of insults or belittling will change that ability to reach audience like Toyota has.  They are well informed about how to target their market.

Not a News Site.  We have been watching online resources fall apart.  They become bias eventually, catering to a opinion to grown & retain interest.  It's really sad.  The idea of journalism is dying... again.  We've seen this before.  It's a cycle.  However, it hasn't ever been this bad: "f** these companies."  That's what the author of the article on the green website posted in the comments about GM, FCA and Toyota.  He lost patience, succumbing to enthusiast rhetoric.  His loss of objectivity was quite obvious throughout article too.  It's a reflection of how divided some have become.  Rather than focusing on solutions for the masses that will actually appeal to dealers, they obsess with size & power.  It's the old nonsense still.  Ugh.  Of course, it's not all bad.  This may be an indication of some growing nervous.  They know sales a challenge and the situation will only get worse if Toyota's upcoming reveal ends up souring their milk.  It's a very real possibility.  Think about the audience.

Making a Point.  He nailed it with the first item of reasoning: "First, Toyota has done more to reduce automotive pollution from manufacturing to exhaust emissions to long lifespan."  It's nice to know others are seeing the bigger picture too.  The short-mindedness makes me crazy.  You get the impression they are considering long-term, when they mention 2035 on a regular basis.  But when it comes down to detail, there isn't any.  It falls apart after about 5 to 6 years, at best.  If they would sight targets, like Euro-7 standard for 2025.  That next level of emission regulation will trigger change... but what?  If they don't even mention the new targets, is there any understanding of what those are attempting to achieve.  What is the desired outcome?  Toyota's has been to reduce emissions across their entire fleet.  That's not exciting.  A halo-vehicle featuring what they are capable to serve as a source of praise and a distraction from the rest of their production is what others do, not Toyota.  In fact, that's exactly what GM was guilty of... and may be again.  So, I draw attention to the acts of regulation, namely the one bypassing Congress.  Would it make any difference?  Remember, antagonists try to portray the situation as binary.  If you aren't in favor, you must be against.  That's not the way reality works.  It's usually not an either/or situation.  This certainly is the case.  There are other details being completely ignored.  I try to stir interest by drawing attention to the other factors involved.  They is more at play.  Here's what I posted:  That hits the heart of the issue.  The original plan in place was weak and automakers weren't making much progress with it.  So, the next stage wasn't going to accomplish much anyway.  Toyota knew more could be achieved.  Waiting to propose that after the administration change was a sensible move.  Pushing for even more would be realistic... knowing a Biden administration would actually be receptive.  Allowing the Trump move to simply die on the vine still makes sense.  It never ceases to amaze me how people just gloss over details.  It helps to feed a false narrative.  They see resistance to change as an act of weakness, even though those resisting are actually holding out to push for something greater.  Toyota wants greater change.  Toyota also wants plans to extend beyond the current end of 2026.  It's sad that so many others are just going with enablers, allowing a "good enough" plan to be followed instead.

Motive.  It's all about trying to convey a message.  Are they pushing a false narrative or trying to validate actual goals?  This particular claim was obvious: "They are trying to destroy the air-quality in America now."  That's absurd.  Seeing some automakers who don't care is one thing, but who would go out of their way to intentionally damage something?  Intent costs money.  Wasting it on something that would provide no return makes now sense.  A motive of greed is entirely different.  In the form of what we have actually seen, that's easy.  It has been the pursuit of maximum profit for minimum effort.  That still requires investment to some degree.  It doesn't just magically happen.  That's why seeing Toyota strive to change dealers without pushing directly difficult to deny.  Why would so much effort to achieve a subtle approach be undertaken?  Making a RAV4 into a plug-in hybrid without fundamentally changing the ownership experience takes a massive amount of work.  I see that type of appeal as a major challenge from my career as a software engineer.  There's a big payoff from being subtle.  It requires maximum effort though.  Enthusiasts typically lack that wisdom.  They don't have 3 decades of experience to leverage.  I do.  I also know a lot of experts to confirm my research.  It also starts with motive.  You state goals.  In fact, that is why I continue to push messaging.  Once you know audience, what do you tell them?  Here's how that discussion is advancing:  The narrative that RAV4 Prime isn't an effort to change dealers fiercely against anything to alter the status quo reveals a blindness to what the true problem is.  Rollout of that vehicle has upset the balance, showing this incredibly stubborn market that 15,000 miles of EV annually from nothing but overnight charging with a 120-volt outlet is very realistic.  That's a paradigm-shift playing out right before your eyes.  Toyota found a way to appeal to ever the most resistant.  No other legacy automaker has been able to reach that audience.

What Attack?  Supposedly there was an attack on the upcoming efficiency mandate and Toyota was a part of it.  When was it?  How did it happen?  What was the outcome?  Now having anything actually change doesn't really support the claim of an attack.  That's what antagonists determined to undermine Toyota are claiming though.  Absence of substance is troubling, especially when you see some websites now pandering to the narrative.  They thrive on the traffic it draws to their site.  Some of the article titles are obvious click-bait too.  You open the link to read about something and it ends up being something else.  But since most aren't looking for substance anyway, that compete lack of merit doesn't matter.  We are definitely entering a troubled stage.  That was quite predictable though.  It's the inevitable outcome of movement forward.  When you progress, the someone who gets left behind will so upset in some manner.  In this case, it gets especially complicated.  If you don't pay attention, you may not even realize what the fight is actually about... as we with this.  I asked questions and got nothing but rhetoric in return... no answers.  So, I ended up posting this:  Toyota knew it was a bluff all along, just another empty threat.  Sure enough, nothing happened.  In other words, they had enough sense to simply just wait it out.  Those of us who have been watching California rules play out saw that the true pressure wasn't actually coming from the administration.  It was a large coalition of legacy dealers with a strong backing from the oil industry.  Our brainless ex-president was just a babbling fool, not worth the time.  And again, nothing became of it.  There was no CARB overrule.  Here in Minnesota, we were well informed of the real fight.  We are inching closer & closer to a final ruling, which would allow us to become the first state in the Midwest to adopt California rules.  In short, there was no attack.  Toyota just kept moving forward with more rollout of their EV tech.

Litigation.  It's gets ugly.  It's wastes time.  It's diverts resources.  It's really unfortunate.  It's reality.  So when Toyota steps aside to avoid it, knowing it would be a futile endeavor, they get labeled as being part of the opposition.  This is how the spin works.  When an enthusiasts dislikes something, they sometimes become an antagonist.  By making up something, repeating it relentlessly, they don't even need substance to back their claim.  The message becomes a familiar sentiment which feeds the overall narrative.  They validate themselves to feel better, to have a sense of accomplishment.  It's false, but they don't care.  Toyota's unwillingness to fight, to just wait until it actually made sense to take a stance was unacceptable.  The fact that whatever they said wouldn't have listened to anyway didn't matter.  The fact that actions of those forcing rollbacks would do anyway didn't matter.  The fact that the fight would have been for goals to weak to make a difference anyway didn't matter.  They just wanted Toyota to fight.  That is the opposite of missed opportunity.  Why consume so much to achieve so little?  Real change requires fundamental rethinks.  Simply pushing new tech is not that.  It's like building a new house on a crumbling foundation.  Enthusiasts refuse to study the business though.  They honestly believe technology alone is enough.  Ugh.  I kept my response to today's nonsense brief:  Not wanting to get tied up with litigation by avoiding any fight involving the administration of that time is now revealing itself as a wise decision.  In other words, Toyota's choice to wait prevented giving antagonists exactly what they wanted.  Instead, the legacy automaker just waited until the next administration took over.  Now, the real fight begins and they have had a chance to demonstrate their BEV potential.  The narrative of resistance is losing merit.