Toyota, the world's biggest car maker, revises electric car targets – report
09/08/2024 10:19 PM
Toyota revises near-future electric car production targets as EV sales start to soften, and hybrid and PHEV tech come to the fore.
Toyota is the latest, and largest, car brand to revise its electric car targets, slashing outputs by a third to one million units in 2026.
It follows Volvo, who changed its plans to go all-electric by the end of the decade, Volkswagen, who is readjusting production and forecasts in a softening market, and Ford, who canned its large electric SUV.
Originally planning to produce 1.5 million electric vehicles (EVs) in 2026, that number is now down 33 per cent, due to "the slowdown in the global EV market", according to Nikkei.
Toyota's EV production targets will still grow, starting from around 100,000 vehicles sold in 2023, to a forecast of around 140,000 in 2024, and rising to 400,000 in 2025.
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Toyota's first global EV, the bZ4X, only hit Australia showrooms in April and found just 717 new homes by the end of August.
The best-selling EV in the country meanwhile, the segment-sharing Tesla Model Y, has amassed 12,516 registrations in the first eight months of 2024.
However, Toyota also fields several battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in China with various partners.
The bZ3 sedan is made in conjunction with BYD, while the bZ3C crossover is also produced with FAW in the mix.
The bZ3X meanwhile, is built with the help of GAC.
Outside of Toyota-badged models, the brand's Lexus luxury division also makes the UX 300e city SUV, as well as the bZ4X-sharing RZ model.
In late 2021, Toyota announced plans to have 30 new EVs for sale by the end of the decade, and rolled out 16 concepts as a declaration of intent.
However, just a year later, it was reported that this plan was being reworked, with work on some of those 30 models halted to pivot towards more efficient production methods like Tesla, amid surging EV sales at the time.
Last year, it was confirmed that 10 new EV models would hit showrooms by 2026 with an update to the existing e-TNGA platform to underpin some, while also launching a new dedicated platform in the same time frame.
It is unclear if this latest cut to EV production will effect any future plans or models.
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