After coming under intense pressure, Toyota has reversed its earlier position and now says it will shift towards EVs. They are now saying they will invest approximately $35 billion on batteries and EVs over the next 10 years.
Meanwhile »
- VW has promised 100 Billion through 2026
- Mercedes is at 40B through 2030
- Stellantis 30B through 2025
- GM 35B through 2025
- Ford 30B through 2025
Toyota has become an electrification laggard, ceding the early lead the Prius hybrid model gave it 25 years ago. Now, after a series of announcements in September and December, it intends to spend $35 billion on batteries and electric vehicles. That’s double Nissan’s recent underwhelming target, but still shy of the 73 billion euros Volkswagen has committed.
Nonetheless, Toyoda now reckons his company can sell 4 million pure electric vehicles a year by 2030 – double the amount forecast just three months earlier. That would be impressive.
He has not, however, let go of Toyota’s love of hybrid engines. These are slated to account for another 4 million vehicles sold in nine years’ time. Toyota is also dabbling in hydrogen technology for passenger cars, even though that’s better suited to large trucks and buses. The carmaker argues such technologies can effectively reduce pollution, and was one of several that refused to support a COP26 pledge to stop selling gasoline-powered vehicles by 2040 read more . It has also lobbied hard against purely electric propulsion requirements and more stringent tailgate emissions standards, the Sierra Club points out.
Toyota committed 8 trillion yen ($70 billion) to electrify its lineup by 2030, half of it to develop a battery electric vehicle lineup, as it looks to tap a growing market for zero-emissions cars.
But the world’s biggest automaker, which is a relative latecomer to full-electric cars, said it expected annual sales of full-electric cars to reach only 3.5 million vehicles by the end of the decade, or around a third of its current vehicle sales.
That is less than bigger rivals such as Volkswagen Group, which in July predicted that half of its global vehicle sales will be battery-powered cars by that date.
Elsewhere » Business Insider / Wall Street Journal 🔒 / CNBC / Associated Press / Mainichi
Toyota’s luxury brand Lexus aims to be fully electric by 2030 in North America » Autoguide
Toyota is finally charging ahead with its electric vehicle plans » Popular Science