Not everyone is ready to transition to electric vehicles, and that's okay. But with strict emission regulations around the corner, many automakers are augmenting their fleetwide emissions with both battery-electric and hybrid powertrains. Toyota has found that those hybrids are turning into its bread and butter.
Welcome back to Critical Materials, your daily roundup for all things EV and automotive tech. Today, we're chatting about Toyota's push for hybrids in North America, Ford's answer to touchscreen controls and used EV batteries finding new life in energy storage. Let's jump in.
30%: Toyota's Answer To Slow EV Sales Is Hybrids
Toyota isn't a big fan of committing to one kind of powertrain, especially if it's powered solely by batteries. While it has committed to electrification, it's not all-in on EVs, promoting its "multi-pathway" approach. Remember, electrified and electric aren't the same thing.
Now, the automaker is reportedly evaluating whether or not it can move most, if not all, of its vehicles in North America across both the Toyota and Lexus marques to hybrid powertrains.
Reuters reports:
Toyota is moving to convert most, and eventually maybe all, of its Toyota and Lexus line-up to hybrid-only models, two Toyota executives told Reuters.
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Many of the hybrid-only models will also likely come as a plug-in hybrid with a bigger battery, according to the two people, who declined to be named.
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The automaker's hybrid strategy aims to solidify its already dominant position in a part of the market that has found a new lease on life as demand for EVs slows, partly due to their high prices and charging hassles.
Sources familiar with Toyota's plans say that the automaker is evaluating each and every model sold in North America to determine if it is feasible to hybridize the nameplate. The evaluation, according to Reuters, is happening with each model redesign, if not sooner.
One example is the Toyota Rav4. The sources say that Toyota is considering whether or not it should ditch the gasoline engine in North America for the vehicle's upcoming redesign for the 2026 model year. The automaker has reportedly not yet made the final call on this move.
Toyota has already electrified the majority of its lineup in North America anyway. In fact, nearly every vehicle in Toyota's lineup (outside of its performance cars) has a hybrid powertrain available today. It appears that Toyota's conundrum is now determining whether or not it will continue to sell non-hybrid variants of its vehicles.
"Going forward, we plan to evaluate, carline by carline, whether going all-hybrid makes sense," said David Christ, Toyota North America's head of sales and marketing, in a response to Reuters.
Toyota has always been a rather conservative automaker when it comes to change. Despite being a pioneer in hybrid tech, the brand is slow to adopt any particular tech until it's tried-and-true, which has been paramount to its reputation as a reliable brand. That could be one of the reasons that the automaker is dragging its feet on pure electrification.
The brand is selling hybrids like hotcakes right now. These sales have helped to fuel record profits over the past year, a huge chunk of which is quickly being re-invested into EVs. Just don't call it a stepping stone, because Toyota doesn't seem to be moving away from partial electrification anytime soon. Toyota says that it builds hybrids because customers actually want them, and it sees hybrid sales as only continuing to increase. In fact, the brand anticipates that hybrids will make up more than 50% of its total sales volume by next year.
Realistically, this is probably a smart move for the Japanese automaker. EV demand is anticipated to "remain modest" over the next few years, which gives Toyota the perfect opportunity to continue capitalizing on hybrids for consumers not yet ready to adopt full battery-electric vehicles.
60%: Ford Could Use Customizable Buttons, Knobs, and Switches To Cut Back On Physical Interior Controls
People are getting sick and tired of touch screens. Sure, they look cool and are flashy, but between digging through menus to find the exact setting someone needs to access and the lack of physical feedback, the fun factor is fading fast.
Automakers are taking one of two routes to fix it. Some are backpedaling and others are looking for more intuitive ways to link the analog world to a digital one. A new patent discovered by CarBuzz shows that Ford may go the second route and is actively trying to find a way to improve the touchscreen-centric user experience.
Ford's idea is a pretty intuitive one. The patent reveals that the Blue Oval wants users to map a vehicle function to the button, dial, switch or knob of their choice.
To achieve this, the vehicle could bring up a digital representation of the physical controls on the car's dashboard. The software knows what kind of input each physical control can feed into the software. For example, it understands that a dial can provide input on how far or quickly a user turns it—perfect for radio volume or HVAC fan speed. It can also be programmed to know that toggle switches and buttons usually mean on-or-off, and can potentially use the state of the button to solicit feedback from other physical controls.
Now, Ford isn't necessarily the only automaker to think of something like this. Tesla, for example, added simple shortcuts such as long presses to the scroll knobs on its steering wheels, which allow users to long-press them for a quick shortcut to a particular feature (like the vehicle's cameras). Ford's patent takes it a bit further by using dedicated controls as a more central theme of its interiors. It builds on the Mach-E, which already has a single knob mounted on its center display that can control different things depending on the context on screen.
I think this is a great idea. I'm all for physical controls in the interior where it makes sense, and this idea seems like a no-brainer if it were to make it into a production vehicle. Heck, even Apple (arguably one of the pioneers of minimalism) knows when it's time to add another physical control to its phones. Surely automakers can take a hint too.
90%: Old EV Batteries Are Finding New Life In Backup Energy Storage
Old EV batteries are finding a "second leg" to stand on as they are given new life inside energy storage products.
As the demand for energy storage products increases, batteries from old or wrecked EVs are finding their way into these appliances rather than being recycled into raw materials. Recyclers are seeing an uptick in demand for these used batteries and industry experts warn that it won't ease anytime soon as the global market share of energy storage is expected to double by 2030.
Automotive News explains what's driving the demand:
Once siloed and separate, the automotive and energy sectors now have a lot in common.
The two industries are converging, giving technology created for zero-emission vehicles new purpose in home energy storage, industrial projects and battery farms that backstop rickety electric grids.
Fledgling efforts with both batteries and hydrogen fuel cells are gaining traction as growth in sales of electric vehicles slackens, presenting a fresh opportunity for traditional auto companies.
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Renewable energy is driving the boom. Sources such as solar, wind and hydropower generate about 21 percent of U.S. electricity production, according to the Department of Energy. But renewable energy is often intermittent. When darkness falls or winds taper, there's not enough energy to satisfy demand, especially as energy-thirsty EVs and data centers arrive in greater numbers.
Flexibility is needed. Enter storage devices, which collect solar and wind energy and discharge it to the grid during periods of peak demand.
Typically, when EV batteries reach the end of their life, they get recycled. The recycling process itself is kind of a mess right now, as automakers don't design or manufacture their packs to be recycled like traditional 12-volt batteries. It's actually very labor-intensive to recycle some packs, between adhesives, potting, and various other technical fusses, it can often be easier (and cheaper) to send it to a recycling facility where these batteries are turned into "black mass" in order for raw materials to be reclaimed.
However, some packs reach their demise much more quickly than others. For example, vehicles involved in crashes or have low-mileage packs plucked for some other reason are the perfect candidates to repurpose those cells rather than chemically recycle them.
These cells can then be placed in systems that provide backup power to homes and commercial facilities via permanent installations. Or, they can be used to balance the grid by powering these buildings when energy demand (and prices) are high, then recharge off-hours.
As Automotive News points out, the biggest factor driving the growth of energy storage is renewable energy generation. All of that energy needs somewhere to be stored, and recycled EV batteries have proven to be the ideal backbone for these storage products. This has created an opportunity for traditional automakers to earn additional revenue by packaging excess battery cells into energy products. Tesla has already gone down this path with its Powerwall and Megapack solutions, but a surging need for storage highlights the potential for other automakers to jump on board.
It also provides a unique opportunity for automakers with existing fuel cell projects. Toyota and Hyundai, for example, are big proponents of hydrogen—despite vehicles like the Mirai not having a great reputation right now. Hydrogen takes a lot of power to produce, but once stored it can be used to generate power on-site. It's one of the reasons that Toyota partnered with Kohler Power Systems to use the Mirai's hydrogen power plant to generate power in an actual backup power generation system earlier this year. Hyundai is betting big on the same use for its hydrogen power as well. So is Honda.
Whether it be batteries or hydrogen, the shared use of automotive tech is pretty interesting. It proves that innovations from one industry can help to bolster another, and even create unique business opportunities for leaders in a particular space. Energy storage could be just the beginning.
100%: Have You Used Your EV's V2H Capabilities Yet?
Vehicle-to-home charging is all the rage right now. With hurricane season being in full swing (and climate change directly affecting strength and frequency of harsh weather), EV owners are plugging in and using their vehicles as a giant power bank on wheels.
It's kind of like what automakers are looking to accomplish with energy storage products, but rather than creating a new product, automakers are using the feature as a means to market something they already sell—kind of smart, if you ask me.
That being said, I'm curious how many people here have used this feature of their EVs. Have you used your vehicle's V2x capabilities to provide auxiliary power to your home? Let me know your use cases in the comments.
