My point, exactly. Surprising. Disappointing. Kinda like a good student turning in subpar work, but on a larger scale. I have to believe they could have done better. My question is, why didn't they? It's a mystery to me.

But I am waiting imapatiently for the Highland!

It's really no mystery. I think they truly thought hydrogen was the answer, kinda of like how Sony bet on Betamax over VHS, which was actually better in some ways. When hydrogen turned out to not be as easy as they thought, they got caught off guard. COVID and supply chain shortages didn't help the situation and just made things worse

i like good analogies and that's a good one.

My grade on it is a C+ or B-, so far from what ya'll are saying.

I don't think so, unless it was too far into development to halt. CEO Sato is changing the focus. But who knows? Regardless, results count.

Toyota was heavily invested in Hydrogen (still is), and if you think about it, it could have possibly been a winning strategy if the Model 3 had not taken off the way it did. Just my thoughts

It's not technically their first EV either, and it definitely isn't their first attempt at optimizing an electric drive path (all those hybrids). They don't really have an excuse for this. Maybe for the battery - and it's a very big maybe (and doesn't make sense to me but let's throw them a bone).

Re: their diesels - DPFs in general were and still are a problem for everybody if driven in city conditions - nothing to be done about it. People should not be buying diesels for city usage anyways for a lot of other reasons. As for failing - it's usually due to burning oil, fuel soot alone (assuming proper ULSD) shouldn't "permanently" clog a DPF. Anyways, the 2AD series aren't exactly known as very reliable engines for reasons other than the DPF :P

Hydrogen is very expensive and there are virtually no filling stations. EV filling stations are everywhere.

It's a bet that didn't pay off because they didn't go big enough. If you believe in something, you bet big on it. Elon believed BEV's were viable and bet the house on them, which meant building out massive charging infrastructure and not just cars. From all the Googling I did, it looks like between Toyota and Shell they promised a $10B Euro investment, but I don't even think that panned out