Toyota’s BEV Pledge – Too Little, Too Late?
By Edward A. Sanchez — June 14, 2023
For the past several years, Toyota has earned itself a reputation of being a noted skeptic of the “all-in” trend toward battery electric vehicles (BEVs) that much of the rest of the automotive industry has enthusiastically embraced. Earlier this week, Toyota hosted a presentation on its future technologies and initiatives in which it claimed it would employ breakthrough battery technologies in the latter part of the decade.
Some of the claims and assertions made in the presentation are an abrupt 180-degree turn from its recent public messaging regarding the most pragmatic use of limited natural resources from batteries. In its standard boilerplate messaging surrounding the issue of hybrids, Toyota has claimed the mineral and battery resources needed for a BEV could be spread among up to 90 hybrid models, resulting in a greater net benefit to the environment than a massive battery pack in a BEV.
So many were surprised in this latest presentation where Toyota was touting future EV models with a 1,000 km (621 mile) range, enabled by solid-state battery technology. By any rational measure, this would require a massive battery pack of at least 100 kWh. So much for “spreading the wealth.”
By 2030, Toyota projects unit production of BEVs at 1.7 million, out of an ultimate goal of 3.5 million. While that is a substantial volume, it is still far less than 50 percent of the company’s global sales, which were 10.5 million in 2022 across all of its brands, including the Daihatsu microcar and Hino heavy truck division. Combined, Toyota and Lexus brand global sales were 9.6 million for 2022.
In response to the company’s previously perceived antagonistic stance toward BEVs, some activist investors have even called for the removal of Akio Toyoda as chairman of the board of directors, the grandson of the founder of Toyota Motors Corporation Kiichiro Toyoda. Toyota’s sudden enthusiasm for BEVs should be applauded and encouraged, although it does throw a bit of a curveball at its public relations department for crafting coherent, believable messaging that bridges that gap between its previous insistence that hybrids and PHEVs were “the way” and now enthusiastically embracing long-range BEVs.
Toyota remains an automotive juggernaut, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. While it may be a bit behind the curve in development of EV technologies, it certainly has the financial and industrial might to be a major player in the BEV market. The question is whether it will be a top three or top 10 player going forward.
(Image courtesy Toyota)
