It caused a sensation as the first automaker to market hybrid cars like the Prius, and cheap electric cars like the electric Yaris, came out against the idea that electrification of cars is a bad idea. Since I'm on vacation and I want to go back to writing something technological, I would like to try to break the problem into two parts. First I will talk about "electric car", and then about "electric mobility".

Let's start with the electric car. Before the competition between steam, electric and petrol cars converged on petrol ones, (for a series of fortuitous coincidences, among other things) the motive energy was that of animals. In the transition between animal energy and thermal energy, however, the concept of the vehicle changed a lot.

What I mean? Well, let's see: this is an animal-powered family car.

And this is the same car today:

I tried to keep a similar capacity (4 seats) and the lack of hood. But the design, as you can see, is completely different. The vehicle is completely upset, the passengers are facing each other, the driver's seat is separated from the cockpit, and all. But we know why: we don't need the horse, but the strength of the horse. The rest can be renounced. And with the horse a whole series of characteristics related to the animal go away.

Now imagine that the new gasoline car design was this:

It would have been enough to put the engine inside the fake horse, the transmissions along the legs, the muffler in the tail, and so on. It could work.

But it wasn't done.

Because we didn't switch from the animal-powered carriage to the heat-powered carriage. We have gone from animal energy mobility to thermal energy mobility. The carriage is dead. The car has arrived.

You will say that I am saying obvious things, but if you really thought so you would not be able to explain to me the reason for what is happening. This is an electric car:

And this is a non-electric car:

Don't you notice that something is missing? The difference is missing. We have transformed an internal combustion engine the size of a kitchen cabinet into a ball the size of a melon. The batteries have moved UNDER the passenger compartment. There is no longer any need for liquid cooling. The couple is completely different.

Cars can't be the same. The shape of the car derives from the need to house a very heavy engine, very hot and in need of refrigeration. And it was born from the need to have a whole series of devices such as the ignition engine, which required space. The enormous weight requires a very strong chassis to reduce vibrations and protect people. The overall weight still requires other adjustments, up to the point where the compromise chosen is to move at least one ton of weight to carry 80 kg of driver for a walk . And this happens WITHOUT the possibility of recovering the enormous amount of motion: braking in thermal cars is completely at a loss .

The vast amount of energy is spent on overcoming the friction of a huge caisson, the rolling friction of wheels whose size depends on the need to brake in a loss of energy, and the inertia of a gigantic weight, mainly due to the need to transport a very heavy and hot engine, which is never recovered when you slow down, not to mention the bestial torsion due to a transmission system made to recover the fact that the thermal engine takes time to get into torque. And I didn't mention the need to safely transport tens of liters of detonating liquid.

In an electric vehicle the weight of the motor is very small, the same for the volume the transmission system is reduced to a minimum, it consumes less if it slows down, it recovers energy if it is used as a brake, it is not so hot, it arrives in torque immediately. And no dangerous liquid is transported.

How is the design expected to remain the same?

The electric car is the equivalent of this:

You can do it. But you will immediately notice the vacuum under the tank. There is no engine. The motorcycle has evolved around the need to carry an internal combustion engine, and marginally a passenger. It develops AROUND the engine. If you take off the engine, the rest doesn't make sense: it's just folklore.

But the efficient form of the same thing is this:

which, as you can see, removes EVERYTHING that has developed around the internal combustion engine, including the fake tank and the space for the incandescent muffler (real reason why the feet must be kept forward and the second passenger is right to wear boots tall).

Returning therefore to the speech of the Toyota leader, we can divide the problem into two parts.

Is converting thermal cars into electric cars madness? Yes. As it would have been to have the internal combustion gig with the wheeled iron horse that contains the engine. It would not make sense because the design developed around passengers AND horse is different from the design developed around passengers AND internal combustion engine.

Is converting mobility to electric madness? No. But this requires a class of vehicles that are not yet seen on the market. Of course, an electric scooter perhaps replaces the scooter, and it fits. Maybe someone will hold the electric chopper with the fake tank for some time. There will still be electric bicycles, but sooner or later it always comes to the big scooter.

I don't know what will take the place of the car, but:

• Toyota president is RIGHT when he says the complete switch to electric is insane.
• Toyota president is WRONG if he tries to say that this stops the transition between thermal and electric mobility.

in the end, in short, the car will end up like the gig. The locomotion changes, the shape of the vehicle changes, the design changes, everything changes.