I personally can't wait for Toyota/Lexus to release their EV products. It's not just their engines and reliability I love, but the comfort and ride. Imagine an IS EV with 400 to 600 WHP, or an LX, or even a Sienna EV. As far as legacy automakers not wanting to switch to EV, I would dispute that. Ford has jumped in feet first with their Mach E and F-150 Lightning, and Hyundai as well with their Ioniq, Kona and Kia offerings. EV is much less complicated, I watched a teardown of the Mach E, and they did it so fast, there were much less parts involved. Even the battery packs, they just pulled them out in a few minutes. The most complicated part is the battery design and management systems

doesn't matter whether they want to. they have to. market demand + govt regulation require it.
i'd say a company like stellantis is in dire trouble. plus smaller companies like mazda.

but to say it's almost like starting from scratch - i disagree.

while the platform / packaging for EVs is different, they still have steering, suspension, cargo space, safety gear, infotainment, and a whole bunch of other things in common with ICE. not to mention the process to reliably make things at scale.

so legacy makers can bring that knowledge forward and it's obvious they're getting on board quickly. 5 yrs ago it was hard to imagine mercedes with eqs, eqe coming, and no doubt a bunch of suv/cuvs, etc. vw/audi/porsche is moving fast, and of course ford. gm seems a bit scattered but maybe this new silverado and derivatives will be amazing.

as someone said, EVs aren't all that complex, physically, but the real challenge is SOFTWARE both on the car and off. the car software, the cloud software/services, and the apps. car makers have been largely clueless on this front and they need to become world class asap. telsa has been all over this from day one. fortunately, software expertise can also be acquired, but you still have to have the vision, design, and execution to make something great happen.

it's an amazing time for looking at the car industry!

Totally agree. By the end of this decade, the legacy auto manufacturers will have figured out the software piece and the new manufacturers will be getting up to speed on the other stuff. I believe some of the legacy guys may not survive but this can also be said for the newer players (or acquired). This is the most change in the auto industry that we've witnessed in the last 50 years. This change will be a key milestone in transportation for sure.

Toyota/Lexus, although not having the best infotainment systems, have a lot of experience with Hybrid systems, which are complicated to manage, so I think they will do fine when it comes to battery management. My guess what took them so long is their customers. I would suspect that a large portion of their US customer base are resistant to EV adoption. I can't figure out what else would be the hold up

This is super easy to understand, sunk cost fallacy.

As if there is a lot of competence in the software industry in general, lol. Automakers using third party vendors anyway, and with all the outsourcing and "work from home" model, software will only become more and more bloated, complex, and glitchy. Even Tesla, who are considered an "IT company", just had a huge glitch where a software update caused many of their cars to have inoperable heaters, in the middle of winter. Still haven't been fixed to the best of my knowledge.

That being said, there is no reason for an EV to also be a technology showcase. It's just a drivetrain for plucks sake.

They already pushed out the software to fix.

What does that mean?

It means to continue down the same path because you're already on that path even if that journey will take you to your doom. It's one of the most basic forms of human behaviour and extends to auto makers and every other business. You put so much effort into a product that you can't turn back even if that product is killing your company. It has put many companies out of business.

The right choice is relative to ToyoLex going all-electric, as others stated EV sales have increased so logically it makes sense to get more market share there but it's obviously deeper than just jumping all in as ICE sales are still relevant.

Definitely makes sense. Or doesn't depending on which side of it you are on

Meeting demand by offering EVs would result in Toyota offering a line of EVs. Taking the enormous risk of going 100% EV is the result of governmental action.

It's going to be very strange seeing a Lexus at a Tesla Supercharger. Or will Lexus try and prevent that?

There are many countries around the world where Toyota sells cars that will not have any EVs for 20years. They just don’t have $$$ to build infrastructure.

Again people really don’t understand that not every place is Florida or California that gets sunny days and no cold weather.

i’m in NY and today we got 8in of snow with freezing temps.
BTW i haven’t seen sunshine for past 3 weeks, just rain and grey sky.

The EV future is greatly overstated.

Your optimism is as grey as your sky! It won't always be winter, the sun will come back. In poorer countries you find totally different cars. When I was in Pakistan many years back, people were driving tiny little 3 cylinder cars and super small minivans made by Suzuki, Toyota etc. These cars were so small they wouldn't even be street legal anywhere in the US except maybe a golf course. These cars are very common because they are fuel efficient, small for the small congested roads, and cheap. For countries like these, gasoline engines will still exist, and small EV's will probably start popping up. Living in the US, Canada and Europe, I don't think we really need to worry about these smaller countries, they will get along fine as they always have