In comments published Tuesday in Toyota’s corporate newsletter, the Toyota Times, Toyota President Akio Toyoda said at an event earlier this month that he doesn’t think battery electric vehicles will reach more than 30 percent market share, despite technological advances or load reductions. to them.
The remaining 70 percent, Toyoda explained, will be occupied by hybrid and hydrogen-fuel mobile vehicles, leaving the internal combustion engines of the combination.
2022 Toyota Mirai XLE
Earlier this month, Toyoda also announced two new potential internal-combustion engine programs. In these recently published comments, he noted that there is so much opposition to new engines as a path forward that banks might not even lend money to engine-related suppliers.
The new 30% cap set by the most sensible executive for electric cars runs counter to the automaker’s recent plans, already partly foreseen in production agreements. Last year, Toyota announced its goal to sell 1. 5 million battery electric cars (BEVs) by 2026 and 3. 5 million BEVs by 2030, both for global purposes. This effort includes electric cars that will begin production in the U. S. in 2025, as well as at least one other new U. S. -bound EV, planned for 2026.
Toyota Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Plans – 2023
Toyota made 8. 69 million cars in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023. If Toyota’s production stays more or less the same, this 2030 target would see electric cars account for about 40% of the market. Given Toyoda’s comments and production plans released last year (above), it’s unclear whether this reflects a nearing retraction of the company’s EV plans for this decade.
Currently, EV batteries make up about 40% of a battery EV’s total charge. But research last year by the Rocky Mountain Institute, taking into account the concept that battery prices will likely halve over the decade, predicted that electric cars would account for two-thirds of global vehicle sales. By 2040, Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that electric cars will make up 75% of new vehicle sales and 44% of cars on the road.
2024 Toyota Prius
Cost may be part of it, but it’s not the nut of the argument. The chairman again stressed that the primary target should be CO2 reduction—not converting specifically to battery-electric or fuel-cell tech. Toyota has long argued that a push toward more hybrids and plug-in hybrids instead would make more of a difference in CO2 over a vast number of global sales, and in recent years it’s continued to increase that hybrid percentage.
Toyoda noted that about a billion people around the world live without electricity and a battery-electric model probably won’t work for them. How a country approaches carbon neutrality depends on its own power situation, he argued.
Toyota EPU Concept
But it’s not just about Toyota’s position in the world. Toyoda has called the United States’ goal of having 50% electric cars by 2030 “very challenging,” while several entire brands, from Volvo and Bentley to Cadillac and Buick, have said they will do so. go fully electric then. If prices go down, will Toyota still be saying the same thing in five years?
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