Toyota to launch ten all-electric models in early 2020s
Toyota is moving fast on electrification and said it will bring more than 10 all-electric vehicles to the global market in the early 2020s. Battery investment is likely to exceed 11 billion euros (1.5 trillion yen) through 2030.
Only days ago, Toyota announced its plans to make half of its sales electrified vehicles from 2030 while it also extends its battery development cooperation with Panasonic (we reported). But this is not enough it appears in the light of tightening emission regulations worldwide.
So in its latest statement, executive Vice President Shigeki Terashi in Tokyo said “as a mass-market automaker we need to expand our offering of electric cars.” This translates to no less than ten new all-electric models Toyota wants to launch throughout the early 2020s with the first EV to hit the market in China by 2020.
Other markets are to follow with Japan, India, the U.S. and Europe next on the list. In absolute figures, Toyota expects its global sales to reach 5.5m electrified vehicles annually by 2030, among them 4.5 HEVs and PHEVs as well as 1 million BEVs and FCVs.
In today’s press release, Toyota specifies that “by around 2025, every model in the Toyota and Lexus line-up around the world will be available either as a dedicated electrified model or have an electrified option. As a result, the number of models developed without an electrified version will be zero.”
Accordingly, Toyota sees this new leap into all-electric territory as an addition to the rest of its offering and Reuters quotes Terashi, who heads Toyota’s EV Business Planning Department, saying that the carmaker was “not shifting focus from FCVs to EVs, but rather planned to increase offerings in both segments.”
The vice president also announced further spending on battery development, “to promote the wider use of EVs, we need to increase our technical development capabilities and address the societal impact of the technology,” the latter meaning battery recycling and second-life use cases.
This September, Toyota had forged a Japanese EV joint venture together with Mazda and supplier Denso. Called EV Common Architecture Spirit, the new company that is largely owned by Toyota with 90 percent shares is to boost the development of various types of electric vehicles, including the full range of compact cars over to light trucks that may also become available as fuel cell vehicles (we reported).
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