Toyota looks to Tesla and fights over vehicle restart

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Toyota plans to revive its electric car strategy to better compete in a booming market it has been slow to penetrate and halted some work on existing electric vehicle projects, four other people familiar with the plans under development said.

Consideration of the proposals, if approved, would constitute a maritime upgrade for Toyota and rewrite the $38 billion EV launch plan announced by the Japanese automaker last year to better compete with Tesla.

A functioning organization within Toyota has been tasked with making plans until early next year to upgrade its existing electric vehicle platform or for a new architecture, the other four people said.

Visitors see a Toyota BZ4X concept electric vehicle (EV) at its world premiere at a press day for Auto Shanghai in Shanghai, China, on April 19, 2021. (Reuters/Aly Song) (REUTERS/Aly Song/Reuters Photos)

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Meanwhile, Toyota suspended work on some of the 30 electric vehicle projects announced in December, which sources and a document reviewed by Reuters say come with the Toyota Compact Cruiser crossover and battery-electric crown.

Toyota said it committed to carbon neutrality but declined to comment on express initiatives.

“To achieve carbon neutrality, Toyota’s own generation, as well as the work we do with a variety of partners and suppliers, is essential,” the company said in response to questions from Reuters.

A 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime electric car charges its batteries on Nov. 5, 2021, at a charging station next to the city corridor in Charlotte, Vermont. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images) (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)/Getty Images)

The 4 appeals declined to be known because the plans have been made public.

The planned overhaul may slow down the deployment of electric cars already on the design board. But it would also give Toyota a chance to compete with a more effective production process, as industry-wide EV sales exceed Toyota’s previous forecasts.

In addition, it would respond to complaints from green investors and environmental teams who argue that Toyota, once loved by environmentalists, has been too slow to adopt electric vehicles.

As part of the overhaul, Toyota is the successor to its main generation of electric cars called the e-TNGA, introduced in 2019. That would allow Toyota to cut costs, other people said.

The first e-TNGA-based electric vehicle, the bZ4X crossover, hit the market earlier this year, though its launch was affected by a recall that forced Toyota to suspend production from June. Production resumed earlier this month.

Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor Corp. , gestures as he poses for photos at a news conference at the company’s showroom in Tokyo, Japan, on Tuesday, December 14, 2021. (Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/ Bloomberg via Getty Images) (Getty Images)

The review was triggered in part when some Toyota engineers and executives realized Toyota was wasting the factory charge war against Tesla on electric vehicles, the sources said.

Toyota’s manufacturing plans had assumed demand for electric cars wouldn’t take off for several decades, the other four people said.

Toyota has designed e-TNGA so that electric cars can be produced in the same line of encounter with gasoline cars and hybrids. This made sense if one assumed Toyota would want to sell about 3. 5 million electric cars a year, about a third of its existing cars. Global volume: until 2030 to remain competitive, the resources said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, left, speaks with Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the inauguration of Tesla’s Berlin Brandenburg factory in Gruenheide, Germany, Tuesday, March 22, 2022. The first European plant in Gruenheide, designed for 500,000 cars in a year (Patrick Pleul/Pool via AP) / AP Newsroom)

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But sales of electric cars are developing faster. Automakers around the world now expect electric cars to account for more than a share of total vehicle production through 2030, as part of an industry-wide investment wave now amounting to $1. 2 trillion.

The user leading Toyota’s EV review is Shigeki Terashi, a former festival director, according to six other people familiar with the work, adding two close to Toyota. Terashi did not respond to a request for comment.

The Terashi team designated a “BR” or “business revolution” organization within Toyota, a term used for major changes, adding a review of its progression and production processes two decades ago.

“What drives Mr. Terashi’s efforts is the faster-than-expected takeoff of the electric vehicle and the immediate adoption of state-of-the-art inventions through Tesla and others,” one of the other people said.

Camry cars pass the final inspection after leaving the meeting line at Toyota Motor Corp. ‘s production plant. in Georgetown, Kentucky, U. S. , Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. (Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg Getty Images) (Luke Sharrett/ Bloomberg Getty Images/Getty Images)

All six declined to be identified due to the confidential nature of the plans.

The Terashi equipment is an option to increase the usefulness of e-TNGA through coupling with new technologies, 3 of the resources said.

Terashi may also propose to retire the e-TNGA more temporarily and opt for a compromised platform for electric cars designed from scratch. New models may take about five years, two of the resources said. time to lose,” said one.

Toyota works with suppliers and their factory inventions to cut costs, such as Tesla’s Giga Press, a large casting device that has simplified work in Tesla factories.

A domain under attention is a more holistic technique for thermal control of an electric vehicle, which combines, for example, passenger air conditioning and electric powertrain temperature, which Tesla has already mobilized, the resources said.

This could match Toyota’s length and weight of an EV battery and cut prices by several thousand dollars depending on the vehicle, making it a “top priority” for Toyota suppliers Denso and Aisin, one of the sources familiar with the matter said. . Denso and Aisin didn’t have any quick comments.

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The popularity within Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, that Tesla has set a new benchmark for electric vehicle production prices marks a sea change.

Ten years ago, when Toyota acquired a stake in Tesla and the two collaborated to produce a battery-electric edition of the RAV4, many Toyota engineers thought the Tesla generation was not a threat, two of the resources said.

“They concluded at the time that you didn’t have to learn,” one of the resources said.

Toyota discontinued the RAV4 in 2014 and sold its stake in Tesla in 2017.

In 2018, when Toyota still set up a department committed to zero emissions and began building an electronic platform, Tesla already had three models on the road.

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