Which other car company do you think have the darkest future?

[blakegallagher]

Steve Jurvitson (sorry for spelling) thinks that Toyota is the only major player that is seriously considering EV's. Having one CEO on board is not the same as changing company policy but I would not short Toyota either. Elon hinted at a much bigger deal in a few years when they have the batteries. I would love to see Toyota sign a large deal and also finance a second Gigafactory

 

[Johan]

Steve Jurvitson (sorry for spelling) thinks that Toyota is the only major player that is seriously considering EV's. Having one CEO on board is not the same as changing company policy but I would not short Toyota either. Elon hinted at a much bigger deal in a few years when they have the batteries. I would love to see Toyota sign a large deal and also finance a second Gigafactory

We don't really know that Jurvetson thinks that, do we? He has said something to the tune of "there's only one other manufacturer serious about EVs and their CEO drives a Tesla" or some such thing. Judging by Toyota's actions they are very much against BEVs in favor of PHEVs (think of their as of yet sucessful line of Prius, Aventis, Auris etc.). Don't be fooled by the RAV4 EV by they way which is of course just a compliance car.

No More Electric Cars from Toyota - Finance Post

Toyota’s Executive Vice President and Member of the Board, Mitsuhisa Kato, told Automotive News that his company was not making any real progress with electric cars and they want to try out something new. Based on his observation, the necessary technology to make EVs a success is yet to be invented. “The cruising distance is so short for EVs, and the charging time is so long,” he added.
He also mentioned that if Toyota wants to produce EVs that have the capability to travel distances similar to regular gasoline-powered cars, it would require more battery power. More battery power in the car means more charging time, and it may end up being a “vicious cycle.”
The problem with EVs in general is that current battery powered cars do not have sufficient power to cover long distance travel.
“At the current level of technology, somebody needs to invent a Nobel Prize winning type battery,” said Kato to describe the shortcoming of currently available EV technology.

Not surpriningly the article concludes that the reason why Toyta is discontinuing their EV program is that they are focusing on FCEVs - that should come as no big surprise at they together with some of the others in big auto have lured governments in many countries in to believing something will actually come of FCEVs, getting a lot of money out of said governments to support their "push" towards FCEVs which by the way is likely just as half-hearted as their attempt at EVs. FCEV will also be just compliance cars, sold at a loss, at the minimum number requiered by CARB.

 

[AudubonB]

To resurrect an old thread after almost exactly one year - well, what do twelve months of hindsight show us?

First off, no one predicted the Big Black Swan of Wolfsburg.

Second, very few of us would correctly have placed TSLA stock as down 4% over the same time.

Quickly, here's how some other names have fared y-o-y: Toyota in US$ (its NYSE stock): +4%; GM: +13%; F: +3%. VW is -38%.

Those of you with the appropriate skills might provide a more comprehensive graph and, of course, you can feel free to pick your own time period.

 

[Johan]

To resurrect an old thread after almost exactly one year - well, what do twelve months of hindsight show us?

First off, no one predicted the Big Black Swan of Wolfsburg.

Second, very few of us would correctly have placed TSLA stock as down 4% over the same time.

Quickly, here's how some other names have fared y-o-y: Toyota in US$ (its NYSE stock): +4%; GM: +13%; F: +3%. VW is -38%.

Those of you with the appropriate skills might provide a more comprehensive graph and, of course, you can feel free to pick your own time period.

:tongue:

 

[tftf]

Toyota is most likely in an inevitable slide towards failure...

I had to read this twice before realizing you are probably serious (?).

Let me ask you and all others reading this thread/suggesting short candidates five sets of questions; three about Toyota and two about the car industry in general:

- Who basically re-invented modern car manufacturing with processes like TPS, JIT and is currently refining all of this expertise with TNGA (smaller batches and better modularity while keeping good operating margins...)?

- Who has been among the most profitable mass-market car makers in recent decades (highest margins compared to car ATP, even with a rising home currency against many main export markets...)?

(The answer to both questions is of course Toyota)

- Do you know that Toyota sells over 10 million cars each year while only factoring in a few thousand Mirai (hydrogen) car sales per year by 2020? (I.e. how will even a complete failure of Mirai sales until 2020 or even 2025 affect Toyota other than a small write-down?)
And you do know that Toyota has one of the highest R&D budgets in the car industry and is researching next-gen battery technology?
(even if they focus their PR/media efforts on hydrogen at the moment, see e.g.: Automotive technology: Toyota RD center working on car battery of the future- Nikkei Asian Review )

---

- You do know that car companies make money selling/leasing cars and bundling associated (personal mobility) services, not oil/gasoline (only one person in this thread seems to have suggested shorting oil companies or gas station operators)?

- You do know that Tesla can only produce about 500k cars/year by 2020 in a best-case scenario (see the Gigafactory investor thread for details, at the moment the factory is probably only capable of churning out batteries for 70-100k cars/year by 2017-2018)? Where will the other 99 million cars / year be coming from if Toyota and/or other car makers "fail"? And how can they fail since Tesla can only produce/satisfy around 0.5% of the annual car demand by 2020?

Given all of this, how you can suggest Toyota is on a slide towards failure. Really curious.

PS: And just to be clear and transparent. I don't hold any shares in Toyota and could care less about the fate of these major car makers in case they chose the wrong strategies going forward. I held BYD and Renault shares in recent weeks and months because both looked attractive to me in late 2014, that's all. I recently sold out of Renault again around 88-90 EUR. Except for these two, I only hold on to a few Mazda shares, no other car makers in (client) portfolios.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Ok, I had to read this twuce before realizing you are probably serious (?). Let me ask you and all others in this thread five sets of questions; three about Toyota and two about the car industry in general:

- Who re-invented modern car manufacturing with processes like TPS, JIT and is currently refining all of this with TNGA (smaller batches and better modularity while keeping high margins...)?

- Who has been among the most profitable mass-market car makers in recent decades (highest margins compared to car ATP, even with a rising home currency against many main export markets...)?

- Do you know that Toyota sells over 10 million cars each year while only factoring in a few thousand Mirai (hydrogen) cars per year by 2020? (I.e. how will even a complete failure of Mirai sales until 2020 or even 2025 affect Toyota other than a small write-down?)
And you do know that Toyota has one of the highest budgets in the car industry researching next-gen battery technology (even if they focus their PR efforts on hydrogen at the moment)?

---

- You do know that car companies make money selling/leasing cars and bundling associated services, not oil/gasoline (only one person in this thread seems to have suggested shorting oil companies)?

- You do know that Tesla can only produce about 500k cars/year by 2020 in a best-case scenario (see the Gigafactory investor thread for details, at the moment the factory is probably capable of churning out batteries for 70-100k cars/year by 2017-2018)? Where will the other 99 million cars / year be coming from if Toyota and/or other car makers "fail"? And how can they fail since Tesla can only produce/satisfy around 0.5% of the annual car demand by 2020?

With all of this, how you can suggest Toyota is on a slide towards failure.

Plug-ins lower the value of Toyota's NiMH and hybrid IP and advertising that lies about plug-ins loses customers interested in plug-ins.
Toyota's design and approach suggests they are inward-looking and that's a bad thing when your country's economy is in serious decline.
There are greater margins in high-value vehicles, and plug-ins are going to grow from the upper end.
Overall industry reliability has improved, weakening one of Toyota's competitive strengths.

 

[Perfectlogic]

I had to read this twice before realizing you are probably serious (?).

Let me ask you and all others reading this thread/suggesting short candidates five sets of questions; three about Toyota and two about the car industry in general:

- Who basically re-invented modern car manufacturing with processes like TPS, JIT and is currently refining all of this with TNGA (smaller batches and better modularity while keeping high margins...)?

- Who has been among the most profitable mass-market car makers in recent decades (highest margins compared to car ATP, even with a rising home currency against many main export markets...)?

(The answer to both questions is of course Toyota)

- Do you know that Toyota sells over 10 million cars each year while only factoring in a few thousand Mirai (hydrogen) cars per year by 2020? (I.e. how will even a complete failure of Mirai sales until 2020 or even 2025 affect Toyota other than a small write-down?)
And you do know that Toyota has one of the highest budgets in the car industry researching next-gen battery technology (even if they focus their PR/media efforts on hydrogen at the moment, see e.g.: Automotive technology: Toyota RD center working on car battery of the future- Nikkei Asian Review )?

---

- You do know that car companies make money selling/leasing cars and bundling associated services, not oil/gasoline (only one person in this thread seems to have suggested shorting oil companies)?

- You do know that Tesla can only produce about 500k cars/year by 2020 in a best-case scenario (see the Gigafactory investor thread for details, at the moment the factory is probably capable of churning out batteries for 70-100k cars/year by 2017-2018)? Where will the other 99 million cars / year be coming from if Toyota and/or other car makers "fail"? And how can they fail since Tesla can only produce/satisfy around 0.5% of the annual car demand by 2020?

With all of this, how you can suggest Toyota is on a slide towards failure.

PS: And just to be clear. I don't hold any could care less what the fate of these major car makers is. I held a few BYD and Renault shares in recent weeks and months because they looked attractive in late 2014, that's all. I recently sold out of Renault again around 88-90 EUR. Except for these two, I only held a few Mazda shares, no other car makers in (client) portfolios.

Noone was saying that every single competitor to Tesla will go bankrupt, not sure where you got that from. The industry is on the cusp of perhaps the largest transition in technology in its entire history, obviously some will handle this shift better than others. The thread is about finding those losers who doesn't believe in the transition to BEVs as they are the most likely to do badly and short them as a hedge. Toyota has probably been the most outspoken about the promise of hydrogen fueled cars so they seemed like a prime candidate unless ofcourse they are saying one thing and doing another like you are implying with your battery comment, but that seems pretty weird.

@Audubon

"First off, no one predicted the Big Black Swan of Wolfsburg."

In our defence that was unpredictable unless you had insider knowledge.

 

[tftf]

Noone was saying that every single competitor to Tesla will go bankrupt, not sure where you got that from.(...)

Toyota has probably been the most outspoken about the promise of hydrogen fueled cars so they seemed like a prime candidate unless ofcourse they are saying one thing and doing another like you are implying with your battery comment, but that seems pretty weird.

See Johan's sentence quoted in my comment above about Toyota most likely being "on a slide towards failure". I responded to him, however my two general sets of questions are for all readers suggesting short candidates in the car industry.

As for batteries vs hydrogen at Toyota: Toyota is doing/researching both. Like most major car makers, they are working on several propulsion technologies in parallel. One doesn't exclude the other given their huge R&D budget.

They are however negative on current Li-Ion batteries (as opposed to Nissan and others in the industry) and suggest it's only for short distances/city cars. Their battery research (next-gen battery tech) has a focus on 2020 and beyond, see my link as a starting point:

Automotive technology: Toyota RD center working on car battery of the future- Nikkei Asian Review

PS: That's it from me for now. Bear hibernation time.

 

[AudubonB]

Audubon

"First off, no one predicted the Big Black Swan of Wolfsburg."

In our defence that was unpredictable unless you had insider knowledge.

Goodness, of course you're right - that's what Black Swans are all about. The only way I remotely could suggest otherwise would be to create some hubris scale, and predict that whoever is on top is the most likely to fail. VW, prior to recent events, certainly would have been a Top Hubris contender.

Maybe I should start a TheBiggerTheyComeTheHarderTheyFall contrarian fund. Wanna contribute?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

See Johan's quote in my commetn above about Toyota very likely being "on a slide towards failure". I responded to him, however my two final sets of questions are for all readers suggesting short candidates in the car industry.

Toyota is doing/researching both. Like most major car makers, they are working on several propulsion technologies in parallel. One doesn't exclude the other given their huge R&D budget.

The battery research (next-gen battery tech) is for 2020 and beyond, see my link as a starting point:

Automotive technology: Toyota RD center working on car battery of the future- Nikkei Asian Review

So, Toyota still isn't interested in lithium-ion even though lithium ion is already on a path to disruptive pricing. It's the same old inward-looking view that leads them to obsess over fast refueling and tiny city-car concepts.

 

[1208]

Toyota now have 7 models of Plug in Hybrids for UK customers, more than any other.

https://www.toyota.co.uk/index.json?gclid=CPn5pK31-8gCFYbIGQodjKcIZA&gclsrc=ds

They aren't going downhill.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Toyota now have 7 models of Plug in Hybrids for UK customers, more than any other.

https://www.toyota.co.uk/index.json?gclid=CPn5pK31-8gCFYbIGQodjKcIZA&gclsrc=ds

They aren't going downhill.

Hybrids. They have hybrids. Cheap plug-ins weaken the value of their established hybrid IP because (a) you need lithium-ion instead of their 99%-owned NiMH (b) the efficiency of hybrid mode becomes less important.

It's not a coincidence that the top conquest vehicle for plug-ins is the Prius. Nobody's looking to Toyota as a technology leader.

 

[Perfectlogic]

See Johan's sentence quoted in my comment above about Toyota most likely being "on a slide towards failure". I responded to him, however my two general sets of questions are for all readers suggesting short candidates in the car industry.

As for batteries vs hydrogen at Toyota: Toyota is doing/researching both. Like most major car makers, they are working on several propulsion technologies in parallel. One doesn't exclude the other given their huge R&D budget.

They are however negative on current Li-Ion batteries (as opposed to Nissan and others in the industry) and suggest it's only for short distances/city cars. Their battery research (next-gen battery tech) has a focus on 2020 and beyond, see my link as a starting point:

Automotive technology: Toyota RD center working on car battery of the future- Nikkei Asian Review

PS: That's it from me for now. Bear hibernation time.

Like another guy pointed out I think they might be pulling a betamax here. Lithion ion is here today and rapidly achieving economies of scale which will make it cheap. Toyota should be well underway in plans to make a whole fleet of BEVs.

 

[Johan]

If Toyota are well underway in plans to make a whole fleet of BEVs then I'll retract my statement that they are early in a slide toward failure. There is however no public information pointing in this direction, on the contrary they seem to be actively opposed to BEVs (except for a few compliance cars) and seem to bet on small NiMh battery hybrids (small battery i.e.) and FCEVs both which, IMO, are clear dead ends. Believe it or not, but what they do today and how they place their strategic bets today will have an impact on where they find themselves in 10 or 20 years, even if they are the world's largest car manufacturer today. If strategic moves didn't have a profound impact on the future then why bother? It would just be a question of gradually adjusting your business according to obvious path of development. But alas, it's not that easy. Toyota is like a huge tank ship at speed, you just don't turn around at will, maneuvers must be planned well ahead and executed with precision over longer periods of time.

 

[Yggdrasill]

- Do you know that Toyota sells over 10 million cars each year while only factoring in a few thousand Mirai (hydrogen) car sales per year by 2020? (I.e. how will even a complete failure of Mirai sales until 2020 or even 2025 affect Toyota other than a small write-down?)

It's not the Mirai itself that will bring down Toyota, it's their doomed strategy that will be their downfall. While everyone else is busy making attractive long-range PHEVs and BEVs, Toyota is betting the house on low-range PHEVs, regular hybrids and hydrogen.

At some point they will realize their mistake, but probably not until they are many years behind the curve. And no matter how much money they have, they can't buy back lost time. (Of course, unless they buy Tesla or something.)

And you do know that Toyota has one of the highest R&D budgets in the car industry and is researching next-gen battery technology?

Everyone is researching next-gen batteries. Only Toyota is holding on to the obsolete NiMH technology.

- You do know that Tesla can only produce about 500k cars/year by 2020 in a best-case scenario (see the Gigafactory investor thread for details, at the moment the factory is probably only capable of churning out batteries for 70-100k cars/year by 2017-2018)? Where will the other 99 million cars / year be coming from if Toyota and/or other car makers "fail"? And how can they fail since Tesla can only produce/satisfy around 0.5% of the annual car demand by 2020?

Given all of this, how you can suggest Toyota is on a slide towards failure. Really curious.

Toyota doesn't have to be wiped out for them to be on a downward slope. VW is still selling about as many cars as before, but their value has taken a major hit. Just like VW, Toyota will suffer once it's long term strategy is revealed to be bunk, even if they are still selling cars.

PS: And just to be clear and transparent. I don't hold any shares in Toyota and could care less about the fate of these major car makers in case they chose the wrong strategies going forward. I held BYD and Renault shares in recent weeks and months because both looked attractive to me in late 2014, that's all. I recently sold out of Renault again around 88-90 EUR. Except for these two, I only hold on to a few Mazda shares, no other car makers in (client) portfolios.

BYD is an attractive company. It's the only car company that I would consider investing in besides Tesla.

 

[adiggs]

To resurrect an old thread after almost exactly one year - well, what do twelve months of hindsight show us?

First off, no one predicted the Big Black Swan of Wolfsburg.

Second, very few of us would correctly have placed TSLA stock as down 4% over the same time.

Quickly, here's how some other names have fared y-o-y: Toyota in US$ (its NYSE stock): +4%; GM: +13%; F: +3%. VW is -38%.

Those of you with the appropriate skills might provide a more comprehensive graph and, of course, you can feel free to pick your own time period.

Through sheer dumb luck, I did pick a piece of VW as the target I would be watching (Porsche). Do I get partial credit?

The reason for picking Porsche hasn't changed. If anything has changed, it's the likelihood that Porsche gets more serious about EVs in time to stop a slide into irrelevance. Unlike the other makers discussed here, the number of cars supplied by Porsche to the world market is replaceable by Tesla - the world market would be just fine if you subtracted Porsche and its car production from that market, where that wouldn't be the case with Toyota, VW, GM, Ford.

 

[AudubonB]

Porsche as POAHY is down 48% y-o-y, so I think you definitely get partial credit. Full credit, of course, if you actually did hedge your portfolio thusly.

 

[RobStark]

VW has the largest R & D budget in the world and they still can't get their diesel's to comply.

GM had the largest R & D budgets in the world in the 50's and 60's and it did not stop their slide in market share to one third of what it once was.

Spending money on R & D does not guarantee results.

 

[austinEV]

TFTF's argument seems to reduce to "There are larger auto companies. Their largeness guarantees success in the future". Sometimes. Not always. The reverse is true I think, Tesla's smallness is a risk and always has been. But the large makers can be disrupted out of the their markets. It is also true that it won't play out like Apple vs Blackberry in that it will be much slower.

 

[anticitizen13.7]

Acura.

Long the neglected backwater subsidiary of the Honda Motor Co. family, Acura finds itself in an impossible position as a "premium" brand also focused on "value". With many Honda models moving up in refinement and feature content, there is increasingly little justification for the Acura brand. Acura vehicles, built on Honda platforms and using Honda powertrains, have shrinking room to show differentiation in terms of handling and performance.

For example, Honda's SH-AWD system used to be an Acura exclusive. Now, it is deployed on the new Honda Pilot, along with the same basic V6 engine. The upcoming 2016 Honda Civic surpasses the Acura ILX (based on the Civic platform) in styling, chassis, and some features. Honda's most efficient hybrid systems, EV powertrains, and hydrogen technology shows up in Honda-branded cars, not Acura ones. Acura does get the NSX sport hybrid system, but this is a low-volume "Rube Goldberg" setup meant more for a show of horsepower than anything else. Acura is Doomed.