Reaction & Commentary
Optimistic view on EVS but that seems to change we present to you six shocking reasons why the new Toyota CEO may call it quits on EVS number six Toyota slashes EV sales forecasts by 39% the last fiscal year was excellent for the Japanese car maker once again Toyota
Reconfirmed its leading position on the market and once again we saw record high profit however a vast majority of that income came from internal combustion cars and while electrified cars do have a big share in total that’s mostly because of hybrid and plugin hybrid vehicles as for EVS Toyota sold just
38,000 units in the last fiscal year and now the forecast for the next year has gone down significantly compared to the initial plans the initial goal for for the 2023 to 2024 fiscal year was to sell 202,000 electric vehicles and recently the estimation changed and the number went down to
123,000 which is a massive 39.1% decrease according to Toyota’s Chief Financial Officer the company doesn’t want to be part of that price War in China where car makers are cutting prices just to establish a better position on the market Toyota doesn’t want to encounter such low margins and
Instead it’ll use its impressive range of Powertrain options to avoid direct price competition on the other hand Toyota does expect phev sales to go up to 141,000 in this fiscal year together with traditional self-charging hybrids which are estimated to climb to 3,588 th000 units electrified Toyota and
Lexus models are expected to take 37.2% of total sales of the world’s leading car maker interestingly Toyota has also decreased its sales estimations for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles from 8,000 to 5,000 units number five EV sales are slowing down as many projected EV sales are slowing down and that’s the most
Obvious reason why Toyota and several other companies have been cautious with full electrification just like with every new technology the EV Market also had an initial boom caused by early adopters technofile zero emission enthusiasts and higher income households were social groups that adopted EV technology rapidly but as we’re talking
About a very small percentage of the population that initial sales boom went as quickly as it came simply but the rest of the demographic groups are not willing to adopt electrification for obvious reasons higher prices EV infrastructure and range anxiety are just some of the things that come to
Mind and with all that said it’s no surprise that EV sales are slowing down 67% in the last year and 50% this year that’s quite indicative and buyers are not the only ones causing EV sales to decrease recently GM announced that they’re dropping their initial sales
Goals for this and the next year and for a reason they stated the company’s struggle to improve efficiency of EV production the same is true with most other e car makers which are still losing money on every eeve sold due to all those efforts to make their own EV
Cars more approachable to the middle class for that reason several major prospects for the future have been delayed particularly the production of all electric pickups such as the Chevy Silverado EV and the GMC Sierra EV number four not particularly successful EV affairs with such a high level of
Skepticism the last few years it’s no surprise that Toyota’s portfolio of electric cars is quite modest more precisely there are no more than a few models on sale at the moment and that includes both Toyota and Lexus brand in this case we will stick to Toyota and
Its only EV available the bz 4X introduced last year the bz 4X represented Toyota’s vision of an all electric compact crossover on paper most things looked right attractive styling decent performance and decent range but as soon as it face exploitation Toyota’s combat DV SUV faced problems particularly in terms of the max range
Which was was notably shorter compared to factory claims normally that wouldn’t be an issue considering that the real life autonomy is 20% shorter on average in the EV Universe in Toyota’s case it falls short by 40% of the factory claims allegedly Toyota fixed this issue with some software updates but unfortunately
The range is just one problematic part of the bz 4x’s Story Another Thing worth mentioning is the battery technology which is far from the most advanced in the business these batteries are characterized by quite unimpressive charging rates which result and much longer charging times compared to most
Rivals to put all these in simple words the bz Forex simply doesn’t live up to Toyota’s impeccable reputation and definitely isn’t something we could call a successful model number three Toyota is not alone in this Toyota is often considered the third most obstructive company in the world towards government
Efforts to curb climate change right behind the two biggest oil companies of course that’s mainly because of former CEO AKO Toyota’s personality who describ described himself as a car guy as a person who doesn’t like things like electrification and digitalization but rather cares about driving experience but does that mean that other automotive
Car makers have already accepted the inevitable process of electrification not at all the only problem is that most other prominent officials in the automotive world have been taking a conformist approach with a few exceptions for example Oliver zipa BMW CEO also spoke against complete electrification he stated several
Reasons starting from the fact that there’s still a large demographic group that can’t make a transition to EVS in such a short time more importantly he said that banning internal combustion cars may lead to dependency on countries that have full control of raw materials that are used for Batteries which
Primarily refers to China on the other hand Carlos tares head of stellantis pointed out that such an aggressive electrification and dogmatic band on internal combustion cars would lead to unmanageable social consequences with EVS currently being way more expensive than internal combustion cars such a quick transition would inevitably make
Car ownership unaffordable for many particularly the middle class number two diversification is Toyota’s way and with all that skepticism we talked about so far in mind it’s worth saying that Toyota isn’t necessarily against EVS what this company Advocates is a diverse approach to minimal carbon footprint and sustainability according to Toyota that
Can be achieved only by electric cars so it doesn’t surprise that this company is developing so many different types of powertrains of course we all know about Toyota’s dedication to hybrid powert trins which has been lasting for nearly three decades but that’s only the beginning the next thing to talk about
Is hydrogen fuel cell AVS something Toyota has been working on for years and already released a couple of production models such as Mirai despite the infrastructural issues and the fact that this is still a very expensive technology the Japanese car maker points out a couple of important advantages
Over battery electric cars starting from a much quicker charging time and potentially much longer range and as a company that’s run by Car Guys it doesn’t surprise that Toyota is simply not giving up on internal combustion engines a hydrogen powered internal combustion engine has been in testing
For a while which included a couple of endurance races as well finally there’s the latest Toyota novelty an ammonia powered internal combustion engine which is something the Japanese car maker has been co-developing with Chinese manufacturer GAC allegedly a 2 L 4-cylinder engine has been developed it puts out around 160 horsepower but more
Importantly it has a 90% reduced carbon emission compared to a similarly sized and powered gasoline engine number one people are finally seeing the reality about EVS those are the words we’ve recently heard from AO Toyota and when you think about it it turns out that the former CEO was right about
Electrification this is going to be an uphill ride and indeed things aren’t going as fast as planned and that’s for many reasons first and foremost there is the matter of profit despite the fact that numerous government and non-government organizations have been advocating for electric cars nothing beats the basic rules of capitalism EVS
Are still too expensive to build and even more expensive to buy so it doesn’t surprise that pretty much every Legacy car maker is still losing a lot of money on every EV it sells in such a situation where the money for the development of new EV Technologies is coming from the
Profit that’s made on internal combustion cars advocating for Rapid electrification for the sake of ecology which is questionable by itself as well doesn’t make any sense we are still years if not not decades away from EVS being fully profitable until then car makers will have to sell IC cars
Otherwise the whole industry will collapse of course there’s also the matter of convenience buyers are forced to radically change their mindset the way they look at cars and that primarily refers to charging which requires a way more logistical approach compared to IC cars especially when it comes to Long
Journeys where drivers now have to take half an hour recharging time into account as well not to mention range anxiety and the fact that the charging network is still limited and far from being ready for Mass electrification thanks for watching and see you next time
