Toyota is increasing the pace in the development of electric cars. By 2025, five years ahead of schedule, battery-powered vehicles are expected to contribute half of the global sales, the world’s second-largest carmaker in Tokyo after Volkswagen.
This is similar to Toyota’s strategy for new drives increasingly the main competitor VW. The Wolfsburg want to sell by 2028 a total of 22 million electric cars with battery drive.
Toyota recently lagged behind competitors such as Nissan and Tesla in battery-electric cars. The Japanese group had long concentrated on hybrid and fuel cell technology. The main source of energy should be hydrogen in the future. Toyota is already building the Mirai, one of the first hydrogen cars in mass production.
This technology continues to be important to the Group. Hydrogen cars like the Mirai would soon become more affordable, the company said in May.
The price swing is obviously not easy for the company. Sales of eCars in 2025 will still be less than one million units per year, which will be behind the sales of hybrid models. In addition, the group could not meet the demand for electric car batteries themselves, said Toyota manager Shigeki Terashi.
Therefore, the company will cooperate with the Chinese battery supplier CATL and the electric car specialists BYD. Toyota has been researching batteries for eCars for decades and produces these power storage units together with the Japanese electronics group Panasonic.
Other car manufacturers are also struggling with bottlenecks in battery replenishment. That’s why Volkswagen wants to invest almost one billion euros in its own factories. In addition, governments in Berlin and France are planning a battery cell consortium to leave this key technology to non-Asian and American suppliers.
However, eCar profits lagged behind demand warned Toyota manager Terashi. The conditions have improved recently. But it remains difficult to make the business profitable.
