What have they done in this space since then?

The fact that they have some history doesn’t mean they’re even close to being a leader at the moment, which I think was the original point. Having done very little since the Prius leaves them towards the bottom.

Considering a lot of other claims and all the feet dragging and other things people have mentioned I also will believe it when I see it and not before.

But I’m with you that it could happen, and I hope it does.

The Prius was the first mass market car in the entire world that could drive on battery power.

Firstly, no it wasn’t. There were many attempts at pure BEV in the twentieth century, including several “mass market” models in the 90s. None were particularly successful, but that doesn’t make Prius the first.

Secondly, that was more than quarter of a century ago. The first Prius came out as many years before today as the Apollo 15 moon landing was before the Prius. The market has moved on. Toyota can’t dine out on Prius forever.

Arguably their biggest cockup was betting the house on hydrogen while the rest of the market realised battery-electric was the way to go. Hydrogen is a dead end technology for private cars, and Toyota was pretty much alone in not realising this.