at least Indian officials are able to identify they were conned.. over here our officials come out of Suzuki factory praising Bolan for its “international standards” when the car itself is 45 years old stripped-to-the-bone vehicle

Totally agree with you. But the Japs are crooks, they will somehow provide a very tiny battery and a watered down hybrid that will increase the mileage by 1% may be and swindle all the incentives that the govt gives them. Scandals have happened already with Daihatsu, Takata airbags and Maruti (Suzuki precisely, there is nothing Indian about the Maruti Suzuki except the name). Why did Indian govt increase the taxes on hybrids in the first place, because Suzuki conned the govt by claiming tax incentives for Hybrid vehicles while deceivingly naming their vehicles as “Smart Hybrid” which gave the impression that it is a strong hybrid vehicles. While in reality, it is just mild hybrids that gave a bit of torque push whenever petrol engines felt laggy in low RPMs. Govt got pissed and raised the taxes thus benefiting nobody. Also, Toyota owns a big share of Suzuki, the protagonist of this story! See who is complaining now? (Hint – Toyota!)

I stand corrected.👍
The only reason that I mentioned India was that it is a large country. EV infrastructure is concentrated in particular areas. A nationwide EV charging network will take time. But, like you said it is growing; so India will transition into a country where easy and widespread adoption of EVs will soon become a reality.
However, for the time being, the tax reduction on hybrids might do good. This can be tried as short term plan; for example, for the next five years or so, on the condition that these companies have to increase their EV lineup. Give an incentive to get an incentive.

My point simply is that any country where the EV infrastructure is not growing fast and/or will not be growing fast anytime soon, in those countries Hybrids do make sense for the time being. The ultimate goal is addressing major issues such as dependence on fossil fuels and reducing overall pollution. Right now countries like Pakistan and many others are suffering these problems. Not only are we burning more fuel than we should be, we are suffering more from pollution. So for now, something is better than nothing. Cheap hybrids will make a difference. For now!

But ultimately Toyota has to realize that this is a stop gap measure and it is just fooling itself if it thinks this situation will persist forever. It will take time but they cannot sit idly by and not utilize this time to actually get into the EV market. If they don’t, they will lose big time.

Actually, the EV infra in India is growing quite fast. The no of public EV charging stations in India is around 9200 (compared to 65000 petrol stations) and is growing at an incredible pace of 20% YOY. So, Toyota’s argument that hybrids are needed for “developing markets” stands invalid. And, I think South Asian countries can leapfrog into EVs without transitioning to Hybrids, just like how the smartphone market exploded without having to move to PCs and then to smartphones like the West. So, no thank you, Toyota!

However, in countries like ours or India where EV infrastructure is still weak or with areas too large and underdeveloped that EV infrastructure does not make financial sense or is very difficult, we have to agree with what Toyota is saying; up to a point! In such countries concentration on both EV and Hybrid makes sense. The Indian government should give Toyota and others the reduction they need to keep hybrids viable and to help make the vehicles cheap enough for more people to afford to buy them.

Judging from the current tax rates on hybrids in India and what the companies are asking, Pakistan already falls in that very low tax bracket for hybrids doesn’t it? Yet the hybrids that have been introduced into Pakistan are prohibitively expensive. That just shows the companies are taking unfair advantage of the lack of oversight by any price control body in Pakistan. India would do well to watch out for such behavior by the car companies.