- Akyo Toyoda (known to be hostile to “all electric”) left his post to “advance change” within the manufacturer
- He is now replaced by ex-Lexus brand manager Koji Sato.
- The firm should push a huge boost on the electric – but there is no question of abandoning hybrid engines for the moment
If you know the recent history of Toyota, the world’s leading automaker, you know how much the brand has bet – under the direction of Akyo Toyoda – on hybrid engines. The firm was even a pioneer on the subject, and this allowed the company to achieve the market share that we still know (Toyota remains number 1 just ahead of Volkswagen).
But the tide is turning. And everything indicates that the brand urgently needs to change direction. Indeed, the largest single market in the Western world with its 450 million inhabitants, the European Union, is preparing to ban all vehicles that run on fossil fuels (including hybrids) by 2035.
Toyota’s electric ambitions are disappointing
Others could follow by then, and in any case, with the rising cost of fossil fuels and the arrival of e-Fuels whose price per liter promises to be prohibitive, not to mention emission tablets and others traffic restrictions which should reduce the attractiveness of this type of engine – it is reasonable to think that buying a car which needs even a comparatively small amount of petrol will become less and less attractive in the coming years .
While Toyota is doing quite well at the moment, there is still time to change direction quickly. And that’s what Koji Sato, the group’s new boss, formerly in charge of Lexus, will have to do. Last February, Koji Sato therefore announced that he would strengthen the electrification of Toyota car ranges.
With a new business plan whose implementation was to begin this month. But since a press release published last Friday we learn more about the details of the new direction that he intends to print in the company. You can read there “we want to protect our beautiful planet Earth and enrich the lives of people around the world. For the car to continue to be a necessary part of society, we need to change the future of the car”.
But in detail, the least we can say is that observers are somewhat disappointed. Unlike some groups, in particular Audi, which are aiming for the total electrification of their ranges by 2033, Toyota is rather aiming for a more distant date, somewhere in 2050. Based on its 2019 figures, the manufacturer is giving itself two intermediate steps: reduce the overall emissions of its new vehicles by 33% by 2030 and by 50% by 2035. Not sure that this is enough for its European sales…
Obviously all this will be done via the electrification of the ranges, but only in part. Toyota already has a recent electric platform on which to build its vehicles, and is in the process of developing a new one. However, the group still seems to want to cling to its PHEV and hybrid engines, while betting on hydrogen vehicles, the inefficiency of which is known for the entire ecosystem – the production of hydrogen itself ( based on electricity) to its inefficient transformation back into electricity in the car itself…
