This interview is insane.
It actually is.
I'll say this without going into too much of my own background,
but what is going on in Toyota with regards to approved corporate positions?
TMC is sending so many mixed messages it's crazy. It feels like there is little to no consensus internally on their views, more like they've developed a roadmap and are now trying to ex-post create a justification for it.
Also, that interview is also insane not just because of the positions taken, but the fact that they have reps walking around out there speaking like this about things that could potentially significantly impact investors' views on where TMC is headed to as a publicly traded going concern.
“We are continuously working on EV entries,” he said. “But right now, there’s no demand.”
You don't say that. Seriously. It doesn't benefit TMC at all to not only state something demonstrably false, but to also basically admonish a group of early-adopter consumers of EVs who are likely quite sensitive to how they are treated (given where the market is currently). It should have been qualified somehow, something like "but right now, the demand isn't sufficient to push EVs ahead of every other project going on in a rush to market", which would have been a better answer.
Let's consider scenarios:
1) This is legitimately accurate and representative of TMC's internal research and strategy (unlikely).
Implication: This means TMC knows something everyone else doesn't (also slightly unlikely), or there is something critically wrong with their market analysis. Either way, this is not a good look.
2) This is a paraphrasing of a more nuanced interpretation, such as "it's not big enough yet for us to rush to hit it before all others" (more likely). Implication: The analysis being done is solid, but it's either not being communicated well to people internally, or they have poor corporate controls in place to manage communications to press. This isn't a good look either, but it's better than (1).
3) Electrek.co has historically been pro-Tesla in my view more than general pro-EV, i suspect potential bias (investor?), and this might be a case of "we decided to interpret everything you said in the worst light possible". Somewhat likely scenario here, but still Toyota needs to be more wary of who they are speaking to if they predict possible bad faith behavior.
4) An employee made some off hand comments based on their personal views more than internal TMC strategy, combined with sloppy reporting with potential bias, resulted in a very very bad look for TMC. This plus their recent emissions move in the US has really hurt their goodwill, but i don't know if we should read too much into their BEV plans.
If the 2020 games aren't a really strong showing for Lexus, I think that's a potentially bad sign of where things are at.
