Context
Europe 2017: this should be Toyota's moment.
VW had been playing fast and loose with calibration of its diesel car emissions, a scandal labelled 'Dieselgate', leading Governments and regulators to ban diesels from many city centres, and hit them with extra tax (fig.i). In theory, as sales of diesel cars fall, hybrid should be the beneficiary.
Toyota was the leading manufacturer of hybrid cars, ergo, Toyota's moment.
Unfortunately for Toyota, consumers had other ideas.
Figure 1: Diesel's demise
The Hybrid Challenge(s)
20 years earlier, in 1997, Toyota had launched one of the first hybrid cars -a Prius - with...