Cars - For Car Enthusiasts

The prime launched with just checks notes 11 miles of EV range. The volt had something like 40 miles. The volt doesn't have a ton of range but it at least fits your explanation of what is best; but the prime, lmao. Are you going to commute to work and run errands, then make it back home, all within 10 miles? Cmon now.

Nissan as a whole is in a bad way right now, no doubt, but that doesn't change the fact that they were the only company that even remotely gave a fuck about realistic affordability and availability a decade+ ago; that's why everyone else sat on the sidelines. Wait for someone else to trip and stumble, and then learn. Problem is, the leaf was good, so when everyone else was waiting, people who wanted an EV with realistic expectations, bought one. Suddenly there wasn't a large market incentive to compete, they'd all be playing catch-up, so everyone just kept waiting. Eventually stuff like that soul EV came out, and you had outliers like the smart, but both of those had worse range, less cargo space, etc. Only with the announced launch of the model 3 did anyone else wake from their slumber and finally start to do something - 'hey bro, can we share notes, I didn't study'. And it would take Toyota another what, 7 years from that announcement, to bring their offer to market? And it's... not great, on specs or price. The og leaf could easily get 5mi/kW, but Toyota's can only hit half that with effort - needing more batteries. At a higher price. Oof.

I fail to see how emissions show that Toyota is making the right decision here - sounds like more "hybrids are better, and totally not because we offer lots of them" paired with "lots of people bought our hybrids, so we are proportionally lower - yay, marketing works!" clouding things.