Is there any info out there of when (or if) Lexus will introduce an all electric vehicle to compete with Tesla?

 

Great question! In my opinion, for the general auto market -- it would be foolish for any new electric car to come out until after 2021-22 years. The reasoning here is a real shift to 5G wireless technologies.

Being stuck on 4G before the change over is limiting the data bandwidth between the car and central navigation/charging station network. Tesla obviously is way ahead of the curve (wireless usage and charging network infrastructure) and set the benchmark for the initial 'smart-car' experience and will even be better positioned to reap the rewards of 5G. Going electric means raised expectations of the vehicle being 'smart'. Most of the market is still a dumb vehicle market and will be that way for the next 10-20 years.

As for Lexus, it is a shame they have not figured out the fundamentals of the user interface for multi media, nav, car info, and slow to adopt integration of CarPlay / Android Auto. Audi, BMW, Acura are well ahead of the curve. The future of luxury cars is evolving into 'tech luxury' or even perhaps 'tech sport luxury'.

The fastest route to becoming the next electric player is to have abundant cash/tech knowhow to set up a charging network, make car's smart within it, and mfg resources for ev power & batteries. Each year of not doing anything, the price tag goes up 10-20% just to get into the game. Toyota does have the cash. They do have the hybrid/electrification experience (Prius). What would the real incentive for them to do such an intensive cash burn versus growing more profit among all cars in their line up. They cannot follow what General Motors approach with the Volt/Bolt/Dolt(as in stupidity) lineup and start to cannibalize sales internally.

I only see Toyota going forward with an ultimate best in class hybrid experience. It means more power, more MPG, luxury focused, and no infrastructure overhead costs. Maybe consider autonomous options. Whatever the mainstream market heads into, one thing is clear... Tesla is already working on 2nd and 3rd generation battery technologies to boost it's life from 2x-3x of current cars( eg 200-400k miles), to 5x-10 (500k miles to million miles). Lower operational long term costs per mile of a EV can be disruptive. No one really likes high mileage cars that are expensive to maintain. Going EV could be an extra value benefit proposition.

Every vehicle company is going to have to answer 'to electrify or not to electrify' question. The world is a changing climate (it is not getting any cooler), and sometime in the future it will not be a matter of choice as we have it today but a mandatory requirement (due to high oil costs, environmental rules, or national/federal mandates). The sooner Toyota has an electric option, the better or get priced out of being a 'player' in the game. Will it be a LEXUS car? probably not. Or maybe they need a whole new division fully committed to a sedan/suv/truck options in the electric EV segment and fund it with 20% of the cash they have in reserve. Audi's e-Tron process did not follow this stand alone company process but it has changed the dna of Audi as a company as a whole to making the manufacturing processes cost competitive. The buzz around e-tron has percolated for the past 3-4 years. We unfortunately do not have any buzz of that sort from Toyota, which indicates they are not interested in being a 'market' leader by any measure... instead... follow the market and do it cost effectively and reliably. So this means tack on at least 4-6 years from today if we're going to see anything 'electrifying' from Toyota/Lexus. Sorry about a long winded read to a disappointing forecast to 2025 or later at the earliest.

 

I heard that Lexus is going to present a real electric car for the next Tokyo Auto show. Normally, if that thing is produced, it would become the first fully specialized electric car on the general auto market.

 

All electric:
We'll be on pause until Congress funds that "electric grid upgrade". Shouldn't cost much more than WW2.
AOC says it will only take a week.

 

Honda says hold my beer...


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​​​​and vw...

 

Volkswagen is planning 27 EV by 2022 including the VW Bus.
https://www.vw.com/models/e-golf/section/safety/

https://www.vw.com/electric-concepts...on/id-vizzion/

 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/m...-focused-hatch

 

Sounds like the UX.

 

Since Toyota / Lexus is making this, it will completely blow away the Tesla as some here are predicting. We shall see.

 

If we follow the popular think here, Audi and Mercedes>Lexus in tech, handling, acceleration etc. and they couldn't blow away Tesla. So why will Lexus be able to?

 

Because Tesla is basically a tiny startup relative to Toyota so if Toyota wanted to develop an EV, it could do it far better than some upstart startup.

Have you seen the E-Tron and EQC? Tesla has no hope now.

 

not so sure about that. the 'bad' thing about the e-tron and eqc is they're still pretty traditional in a number of ways - i don't get for example, why the front under hood area is 'full' (no frunk). i believe those vehicles are also built on same lines as their ICE counterparts.

so while they're really nice vehicles, they're not very efficient. but i do believe they will significantly impact tesla model x sales.