A “silent majority” of car companies is concerned that electric vehicles will not alone be able to end reliance on fossil fuels, according to a senior Toyota executive. The Telegraph has more.
Akio Toyoda, the company’s president and grandson of its founder Kiichiro Toyoda, said that many concerned senior figures are reluctant to say what they really think because of the pressure to go green.
It comes as the industry struggles to ditch petrol and diesel, in the face of materials shortages and complex processes that have kept the cost of building electric cars high.
In comments on a visit to Thailand first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Mr Toyoda said: “People involved in the auto industry are largely a silent majority.
“That silent majority is wondering whether EVs [electric vehicles] are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it’s the trend so they can’t speak out loudly.”
Meanwhile, MPs on the parliamentary Science and Technology Committee have warned that plans to require that all new boilers are able to run on hydrogen within a few years are unrealistic and the gas is likely to play a limited role in the future energy system, given the practical challenges of producing and handling it cleanly at large scale. From the Telegraph:
They argue huge questions still need to be answered about the potential deployment of the gas, and highlight “conflicting views” on the role it could play in domestic heating, given the merits of electric heat pumps instead.
Hydrogen is currently a niche product used in chemical production and oil refining, but politicians around the world hope it can replace fossil fuels in uses ranging from heating to transport, as it does not produce emissions when burned.
However, the committee argued that in practice this was likely to be limited to uses where other options are unsuitable, or in areas which are close to hydrogen production hubs.
“It seems likely that any future use of hydrogen will be limited rather than universal,” they said. “This limited – rather than universal – use of hydrogen should inform Government decisions. For example, we disagree with the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation that the Government should mandate new domestic boilers to be hydrogen-ready from 2025.”
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What fascinates me is how people in the West are chasing tiny reductions of CO2 with unsuitable, expensive and immature technologies, while completely ignoring that China, Russia, and India are largely ignoring the ‘reduce CO2’ bandwagon.
I saw something about Norway committing to a 22% reduction, (They produce about 0.3% of global CO2), so a 22% reduction is an insignificant fraction, certainly less than a new Indian coal fired power station, and they are building dozens of them. Yet none of the eco-shrieks seem to be able to join the dots, and realise that all of this is futile. This pre-supposes that AGW is a thing anyway, for which the ‘evidence’ presented appears to be more and more desperate and hyperbole. When will they realise that they’ve been had..? Should we run a sweepstake.? My guess, sometime in 2026.
Since when was futility a problem for religious fanatics?
In any case, just like a suicide bomber (talk about futile) is a useful idiot for some leader pushing an agenda, so eco-shrieks are the useful idiots of the powerful interest groups that benefit from the climate change agenda. And you can be sure those powerful interest groups don’t believe for a minute we are under any danger from climate change.
It’s Pantomime.
When you say “people” are chasing tiny reductions in CO2, you mean ofcourse “governments”. All of this climate emergency stuff emanates from the IPCC (a government body, not a scientific one). The people are led along by government and their claims of a “climate crisis” and the compliant media help enormously to promote this climate agenda. SKY News actually had The Daily Climate Show full of the most ridiculous nonsense, but millions will see this on TV as they come in from work etc. and assume that what they are hearing is really the real state of the world and the climate. Governments like the UK one have committed themselves to spend about one and a half trillion quid on Net Zero policies to take away fossil fuels even though they have no idea how that could ever be achieved or even if it is remotely possible. ——But as you point out, it does not seem to matter. Western governments have signed up to this agenda which is all about Sustainable Devlopment and this idea that the wealthy west has used up more than it’s fair share of the fossil fuels in the ground to become prosperous and must STOP doing that.—– In order to get away with this stunt, they tell their votes that they “must fight climate change” and that this is all about the environment. NOPE. It is about the word’s wealth and resources as more and more people want to use those fuels to get the same standard of living as the west.
Toyota has missed the point, they are approaching this logically, practically and realistically, they clearly did not get the email. With current technology you cannot replace all the petrol/diesel cars with EV’, we simply cannot do all the mining, mineral extraction, electric generation and battery re-cycling that would be needed to do that. New technology may come along? but usually we wait for the technology to come along first and then change society to make best use of that technology. With EVs we are trying to force a technology to deliver a solution which if cannot achieve, to answer a problem which we have invented and imposed on ourselves.
The more sinister side of all this is that this may be intentional? TPTB may be looking for the EV business to put an end to the cheap and easy travel that petrol/diesel cars have given to the hoi-polloi, they are planning for us all to lose our cars and our freedom. They want us to live in 15 minute cities with no cars, eating insect based bio-foods and being blissfully happy to have found utopia as we wave and doff our eco-caps at the toffs and the elites gliding past in their gleaming Teslas.
That’s what I think as well Steve
they defo do want us out of our cars & if the Jabathon does cause a mass cull in the next couple of years then so many cars won’t be needed anyway 
It is intentional !!!
Your final paragraph sums it all up
‘With EVs we are trying to force a technology to deliver a solution which if cannot achieve…’
If I may offer one adjustment… technology we don’t have.
If we had the technology we would by now be using it because it would be delivering greater benefit.
“Silent Majority” the power of censorship and risk of the other silent ones not going public with you. Anyone being successful in industry and business understands this. The politicians don’t as most of them do not posses the skills to be successful in anything where truth and measurable results count for anything. Thus, their career in politics.
Fossil Fuels – another Rockefeller lie. Hydrocarbons are abiotic, nor organic, self generating and this is why oil is the 2nd most plentiful liquid on the planet. A fossil is a skeleton or animal encased in cement ie water and sand. You don’t use this for fuel. Your dead cat won’t ‘fossilise’. Trillions of years of dead animals are not going to produce ‘oil’ through the trillions of years of ‘compression’. Go outside and toss some dead animals on the ground, in the swamp, along the beach, under a tree and see for yourself.
Words are important. Lose Fossil Fuels, it is an ignorant lie. As dumb as fhe f*ing Rona scamdemic. There is nothing, zero, nada wrong using hydrocarbons. It does not hurt mommy Gaia who doesn’t give a shit we drive around in a Ford Fiesta.
Whether the idea emerged from him or not, the concatenation of the terms “fossil” and “fuel” do look like a deliberate false information tactic. Not much energy in our skeletons, after all. In the real world, hydrocarbons are a practical long term storage mechanism of energy received from the Sun by plants. Perhaps we could call it “Green”? Or maybe not, if someone else has grabbed hold of the term “Green” for similar reasons.
John – it sounds like you disagree with the notion of some or all “fossil fuels” being “abiotic” (i.e. not from organic matter, whether plants or animals). Is that correct?
To be clear, I am a Don’t Know on this one. I would certainly like to know more.
I’m aware that there is a theory of abiotic creation of “fuel oil”, but it is controversial. Similarly for other types, like methane deposits, or coal. It is common understanding that the original source of such things was plant material. Hence my comment that fuels could be considered to be a long term storage mechanism, via the plants themselves.
Thanks, John
All part of the Davos devils/ WEF Agenda 30/ Great Reset where by 2030 we will own nothing and be happy. In order to achieve that goal they need to destroy the global economy. Phase 1 was lockdowns, phase 2 is people made climate change/net zero hoax and phase 3 is falsely exceedingly high energy prices.
The “silent majority” of car manufacturers only make electric cars because governments force them to.
It’s only Elon Musk (i.e. Tesla) who delights in taking taxpayers’ money to make extremely heavy virtue-signalling toys for people who have more money than sense. They don’t call him the “Subsidy Truffle Hound” for nothing. He’s a genius at it.
Elon Musk is also our great hope for re-installing free speech (i.e. the ability to expose the truth to power and to everyone else) in the public “market square”. With mass censorship of the truth by both MSM and social media, we have no chance.
That’s right, keep believing in that Saviour, that White Knight.
On free speech, he should be judged by his actions – on which, so far, so good. Or do you disagree?
I completely disagree. For many years I had a morbid fascination for Musk and all his dodgy exploits. I can tell you that he is absolutely no fan of free speech. Quite the opposite.
His reason for purchasing Twitter is clear : to turn it into his own personal mouthpiece and to silence criticism of his various exploits. And then worse, much worse, he will make truth available to the highest bidder – the government.
Musk has already intervened to remove tweets which he found displeasing. And that was before he bought it. It’s even worse now.
People think Twitter has seen its bottom and that it can’t get any worse. Oh, it can, and under Musk, it will. Mark my words.
He is a narcissistic crook. I was relieved when, in March 2020, I found something on which I could agree with him – that it wasn’t a pandemic.
The scariest two words in the English language? “politicians hope”
Nearly as scary as “military intelligence”
We have had hydrogen powered vehicles since the second world war and they have never been efficient enough to use outside a petrol rationed situation, they where stand in in emergency times.
The same is true of all hydrogen use, it is not efficient enough,, use electricity to make hydrogen then use the hydrogen to create electricity or power home boilers! Bunkum! Never worked and never will you never get something for nothing(yet!)
I think we need to understand the highly polite and non confrontational nature of Japanese senior management communication. If English he would be saying “this political focus on EVs is totally firkin mad”.
EV’s:
50% heavier, so more dangerous in crashes.
Can’t easily recycle the batteries, so poor resale value.
New batteries exceedingly expensive, so used cars destined for landfill.
Batteries require large quantities of Cobalt and Lithium, often mined using child labour and manufactured using Yuighur slave labour.
Batteries catch fire.
How do we charge every car overnight when the wind isn’t blowing?
Limited Lithium in the world.
Given that every device and machine on the planet will soon need a Lithium battery, in a few years no more Lithium.
But great smugness value for the cringeworthy leftoids.
“More dangerous in crashes”?
Only for those on the wrong end of a collision, surely? For those on the right end, I’m alright, Jack.
Except – EVs have a propensity to catch fire which spreads quickly and reaches very high temperatures after collision; a fire that is almost impossible to extinguish.
Hydrogen.
How will hydrogen be produced? Currently it comes from hydrocarbons releasing CO2 as a by-product; hydrolysis requires huge amounts of energy. Where will that energy come from? Where will the water come from? The best source would be sea water which then produces toxic byproducts, so what will we do with massive amounts of that?
Hydrogen when burnt in air produces water vapour. The most significant ‘greenhouse gas’, way more so than CO2, which provides nearly all our ‘global warming’ is water vapour, and without the 2% to 4% in the atmosphere Earth would be as cold as Mars with its 93% atmospheric CO2 and no water vapour.
Then there’s the fact that hydrogen is an extremely difficult and dangerous gas to store, transport and use.
EVs – leaving aside production difficulties, there are three main problems.
1) Where will the electricity come from?
2) How will it be distributed?
3) Given that most people use the residual value of their current vehicle to part finance their new/second hand one, and since the market for second hand ICE vehicles will become glutted with nobody wanting them, their value will be scrap value at best. So how will people afford EVs?
Then of course EVs are not practical, lacking range or utility – they are basically sophisticated golf buggies.
Car manufacturers worried? Well they have gone along with all this crap, so why didn’t they tell Governments to sod–off years ago? Wasn’t being fooled with diesel lesson enough? Cronyism of course.
It would be really good if the “merits” of heat pumps are actually properly investigated. In so many cases properties in the UK are not suitable for heat pumps and in cold conditions draw on mains electricity to provide any heating at massive cost to their users. If there were heat pumps everywhere in the UK in cold weather this would apply a drain to the electicity grid far beyond that which it could cope with. Just imagine if at the same time all cars were electric and needed to be charged – no chance. The investment required to meet these levels of demand in peak times would be massive and its no good thinking renewables could provide it, they can’t, so we would be back to generating electricity at far higher levels than now using the only possible option – fossil fuels
A heat pump has merits in a rural location with no mains gas & no access for oil or LPG delivery & storage. Having said that, alternative heating systems need to be explored. Infrared heater technology has improved & is probably a more efficient & cheaper solution both for installation & use.
Heating of hot water would need to be via a different mechanism.
Of course your situation would change if there was not so many of us cluttering the planet.
Don’t have enough raw materials for the batteries. Don’t have any clean way to make the hydrogen. Don’t have wind or sun consistently enough and we’re nowhere near being able to produce a tiny fraction of the storage buffering required for when solar radiation and the wind aren’t plentiful enough. It’s almost as though net zero was all virtue signalling and they didn’t have any idea what the costs would be. But surely our politicians can’t be that shallow and imbecilic?