© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Toyota Motor Corporation’s bZ SDN after a briefing on the company’s strategies in battery electric vehicles in Tokyo, Japan, December 14, 2021. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
By Daniel Leussink and Maki Shiraki
TOKYO (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp will introduce 10 new battery-powered models and target sales of 1.5 million electric vehicles a year by 2026, aiming for strong growth in a market where rivals have outpaced it since a long time ago.
The world’s largest automaker by sales will also set up a new specialized unit to focus on next-generation battery-electric vehicles, top executives said at a briefing on Friday as they outlined plans under their new leadership team.
Toyota, including its luxury brand Lexus, currently has just three battery models on the market and sold fewer than 25,000 of them worldwide last year.
Investors and environmental groups have criticized Toyota for being slow to embrace battery-powered cars, saying it has lost ground to Tesla (NASDAQ:) Inc and others that have been more agile in capturing fast-growing demand.
The Japanese automaker has responded that electric vehicles are just one option for customers and that gasoline-electric hybrids, like its pioneering Prius, are a more realistic option for some markets and drivers.
“In the coming years we will expand our lineup in the important battery-electric category,” Chief Executive Koji Sato said at the briefing, the first in the top job, but adding that hybrids will remain an important mainstay.
Electric vehicles are now expected to account for more than half of total vehicle production worldwide by 2030.
Meeting that demand will be critical for Toyota, which also said it would ramp up production in the United States, where EV growth is outpacing the broader market.
Toyota reported that US sales fell nearly 9% during the first quarter. By contrast, General Motors Co (NYSE:) saw an 18% rise, helped by higher demand for EVs from fleets and commercial customers.
US consumers making the switch to electric vehicles are largely doing so from Toyota and Honda Motor Co, data from S&P Global (NYSE:) Mobility in November showed.
“Now that it’s time to take the next great innovative leap, Toyota is falling behind and more and more people in the US are beginning to understand that,” East Peterson-Trujillo, a clean vehicle activist, said in a statement. from the non-profit organization Public Citizen. interview before the briefing.
