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Toyota reportedly took apart a Model Y and were stunned by Tesla's EV tech.
I'm surprised it took Toyota this long to do something like this but also not exactly the highest praise with what they've done so far with the bZ4X...
Toyota admits Tesla Model Y is "truly a work of art" as it rethinks EV strategy
Toyota executives do a tear down of Model Y and discover a "work of art." If only they had done a little YouTubing five years ago.
thedriven.io
A group of Toyota executives has reportedly praised Tesla’s revolutionary design philosophy after they conducted a piece by piece “teardown” of the latest Tesla Model Y, in the latest sign that the world’s biggest car maker is realising it’s being comprehensively outplayed by Musk’s industry upstart.
The Toyota executives, who wished to remain anonymous spoke to Automotive News, about what they had learned as they explored the Model Y and considered how Toyota – having largely eschewed the EV transition to now – could start to play catch up.
“Taking the skin off the Model Y, it was truly a work of art” said one Toyota executive. “It’s unbelievable”.
“We need a new platform designed as a blank sheet” said another. “It’s a whole different manufacturing philosophy”
And Toyota knows a few things about manufacturing philosophies. In the 1970s Toyota revolutionised the world with its lean manufacturing principals including the “Just-in-time” Kanban system, the “Kaizen” continuous improvement and 5S organisational housekeeping.
These concepts enabled Toyota and other Japanese automakers to dramatically reduce costs and dominate the global car market. Many European and and US car makers had to scramble to copy the new manufacturing processes to stay competitive, many narrowly avoided going out of business altogether.
