[Quinn]

The parents company of Mercedes Benz has outlined some steep milestones that they hope to meet in the next few years. Their goal is to have 25% of all their vehicles sales to consist of EV's. The remaining 75% will remain to run on petrol but many of those will also be going hybrid. MB has put more than $16 billion into developing their EQ range so far.

 

[PetersBenz]

One of the bigger questions to these aggressive moves to get EV's out that we're seeing from various car makers is, in what markets?
Toyota said they'll launch 10 EV's around the early 2020's but as you investigate it turns out that's for China. Competitiveness of specific markets is a big factor.

 

[Enzo]

Toyota said that more than a year ago, and we've yet to see a single new EV showcased. The only thing that's really holding back the widespread adoption of EV's is the steep buy in price, but I would imagine by 2020 that will drop by a large margin.

 

[PetersBenz]

Now that the new Corolla is here as both a sedan and hatch, it should give Toyota even more of a reason to launch an EV. I would love to see an electrified Corolla Hatch.

 

[Quinn]

While it is looking like China will be the main hub for electrics, at least early on I think their will be a focus on autonomous cars there. We've already seen some big partnerships between automakers and tech companies in an effort to bring mass produced Level 4 vehicles asap.

 

[PetersBenz]

Tesla does very well in the eastern part of the world, but Toyota takes the lead in all of North America.
Brand familiarity is big and it just takes Toyota/Lexus to make some simple moves to EV to crush Tesla.

 

[Enzo]

Let them do the majority of testing for fully autonomous vehicles overseas. You know there are going to be a bunch of accidents and deaths early on, as they start to roll these out on a larger scale. We've already seen some people get killed by the pilot programs currently underway from Uber, Waymo, Google etc.

 

[PetersBenz]

I just see those issues as nothing more than growing pains that will stay in place till system get smarter and various things we do become more connected. If its just a small percent of people getting caught up, then from a business perspective, its not that important, there are far more wins being made.

 

[Quinn]

In each one of those incidents where we've seen an autonomous vehicle in an accident, the passenger has always failed to intervene. And I think that even with Level 4 systems that there will still be the fine print that you need to be able to take control of the vehicle at any point.