Betting The Farm.  Framing the situation as zero-sum is typical.  Online exchanges are usually polarized.  You choose a side and stick with it.  That's why the exchanges are endless.  They like to declare victory: "You forget that Toyota bet the company on hydrogen fuel cells and lost."  I like to call them out on the attempt:  There was no such bet.  We see hybrid technology spread across almost their entire selection of passenger vehicles now available, with some phasing out traditional models and others adding a plug.  We also see the intent to rollout the first of seven BEV models staring in about 6 months.  In other words, rhetoric about hydrogen is starting to look pretty desperate.

They Will Pay.  It's more of their doom & gloom narrative:  "Toyota like all the legacies should have seriously invested in BEV's 10 years ago.  Now they will pay a heavy price for their bad decisions."  Ugh.  Oh well, I always have something ready to volley back:  That narrative of Toyota not having invested already is becoming more and more difficult to push.  Look at success of the EV drive from RAV4 Prime for proof.  It's an all-electric propulsion system that leveraged experience gained from Prius Prime, which was a second-generation design based on the original Prius PHV.  Think about how many years of development has already put into delivery of real-world miles from ordinary consumers plugging in every night.  This is why the new BEV coming Toyota this Spring has so many worried, especially with an expectation being set for 90% battery capacity retention after 10 years of use.  Combining that production & support knowledge already acquired with better chemistry is what the other legacy automakers are not prepared to deal with yet.  As for a cheaper BEV being more desirable than their own PHEV, that's just pointless rhetoric.  Absence of any detail to support such a claim makes that obvious.  I'm surprised that would ever be posted.  Who is it supposed to convince?

Until When?  I got a kick out of reading this today: "Toyota isn't planning on putting out their first BEV until 2025."  There are a few who feel comfortable with outright lies, just making up whatever they want.  Ugh.  It such a waste of time having to deal with that.  But if you don't, it ends up feeding the narrative... becoming undermine material no one can trace it to an original source.  Supposed facts get passed along to legitimize them as valid by depending upon repetition.  You just end up believing something after awhile as a result.  So, some type of interrupt should be posted to disrupt the flow.  I went with:  Where did you come up with such nonsense?  7 models in there upcoming "bZ" brand will be rolled out by then, along with 8 additional BEV offerings.  The first from Toyota will be a RAV4 sized BEV with AWD.  Rollout will begin this Spring.  That's roughly 6 months from now.  Stop feeding the narratives.

Constructive Discussion.  It is difficult to get anything resembling constructive discussion out of the local trolls.  They just inundate any discussion about Toyota until it is overwhelmed with rhetoric.  They thrive on the attention it stirs.  Since it there's no way to get them to actually try to contribute any useful, I sometimes go for the provoke approach.  Tricks like that will occasionally result in an exchange of information.  It's sad that they have nothing better to do, but at least it isn't futile.  For example: "It wasn't a wash with the Model 3.  Getting around the same range as the standard range model meant using a LFP pack that is the size of the long range Li-ion pack."  That was interesting.  It continued on with the self-importance of enthusiasts.  Ugh.  They don't care, but that does provide an opportunity to respond with exposition... stuff they don't care about, but lurkers would have as a take-away from reading the exchange.  So, I posted:  Know your audience.  The buyers being targeted don't care how it was achieved or what the engineering tradeoffs were. They simply find fulfillment of their own desire wants & needs... which is the point of market growth.  A pack that is larger & heavier is only a barrier if you have other priorities, like long range instead of heat-tolerance and minimizing fire-risk.  That's why selling to mainstream shoppers is so much more difficult than enthusiasts.  Design traits very important to one group tend to be of less or no importance to others.  This is why automakers produce a variety of model configurations.  Welcome to a world where Tesla is forced to diversify.  The mantra of just-build-more wasn't realistic.  Stated in an entirely different matter, ask who would be willing to pay an additional $10,000 for an extra 90 miles of range.

In other words, committing to high-volume production of something that ultimately will not be acceptable to ordinary consumers or even competitive can be a seriously mistake.  Yet, we see many here endorsing quantity over quality.  Comprehensive solutions cannot be rushed.

It will happen, just not anywhere near as fast as enthusiasts hope.

Series Hybrid.  Gotta like a question asked, even if the hypothesis has little footing in reality: "Why aren't hybrids made to have a gas engine only as an electric generator, like freight trains with diesel-electric?  No gas engine connected to the drive train, but just to charge and run the electric motors?"  The best way to deal with that is to address the concept with some starter examples.  Don't sight statistics, since that can just be twisted & distorted to avoid having to address the actual problem.  That becomes an invitation for dismissal rather than an invitation for deeper inspection.  In this case, the topic is a category (type) of hybrid that we have seen a times over the past 25 years.  I started what will hoping become a constructive exchange with:  There have been some.  Like all engineering, that involves tradeoff.  For the most part, it isn't the most efficiency approach.  You are better off with either parallel or blended.  Also, keep in mind that emissions (smog) are important too, not just efficiency (carbon).  Nissan Note e-Power is indeed that type of hybrid and is still being produced.

Needless to say, they have a very diverse & profitable offering with continued potential.  Introduction of Corolla Cross hybrid will very likely usher in a plug-in model.

Fact Checking.  Gotta like this: "It took Tesla 10 years to get to where it is now, Toyota hasn't even started pursuing electrification beyond their hybrids."  Some just like to post the history they want, rather than face reality.  My guess is some of that comes from not wanting to find out what that reality actually is.  Simply finding a sentiment of opposition to validate your hope is so much easier.  After all, we saw Volt enthusiast hold on to meritless hope for years.  They just figured if enough people all believed the same thing, that would somehow legitimize their stance.  Ugh.  I punched back at that absurd attempt to rewrite history with:  Claiming that they haven't even started yet is just plain not true.  In China, there is a choice Izoa/C-HR and UX300e now.  Both are BEV on existing platforms.  The new dedicated platform (first of seven) will be rolled out next year, creating Toyota's new "bZ" brand for electric-only vehicles.  So it comes down to the question of whether you were not well informed or if you were just passing along rhetoric without fact-checking.

Toyota Boycott.  A new article was published.  It was just a meritless collection of the usual rubbish rhetoric.  I let the comments build up quite a bit before finally chiming in.  I was quite curious if any of the claims about Toyota supposedly being anti-EV would at all be called out by their plans to rollout an entire new brand featuring BEV choices.  After all, GM has only offered Bolt... a vehicle clearly not targeting their own loyal customers... with nothing but a promise to eventually start producing Ultium-based all-electric vehicles for their core.  There's nothing to actually support that.  In fact, GM's plans for Hummer and the new Cadillac do anything but.  My post was short.  I asked:  bZ4X will be the first BEV from Toyota's new brand using new dedicated electric-only platforms rolled Spring of 2022.  Details about it will be revealed late this year.  There will be 6 more to follow by 2025.  Why is everyone pretending Toyota's has no such plans?

That's what the perspective of "would rather die" resonates with this audience but means nothing to the masses.  It is really just part of the evolutionary process as a technology progresses to new audiences within a vast & diverse market.