Toyota Ranked at the Bottom in Climate Policy Participation Among Automakers
TapTechNews May 17th news, according to the latest climate policy participation assessment report released by InfluenceMap, Toyota ranked at the bottom among all automakers and became one of the companies that most actively hindered climate-related legislation. The report pointed out that Japanese automakers such as Suzuki, Mazda, and Toyota have been actively opposing the policies of various governments to enact emissions-limiting regulations and promote electric vehicles.
Toyota publicly opposed the policy of regarding pure electric vehicles as the only environmentally friendly solution, claiming that hybrid vehicles are a better choice because the supply of raw materials for electric vehicle batteries is limited. In addition, Toyota had previously donated to some politicians who are climate change skeptics, which has caused dissatisfaction among some investors.
Ben Youriev, director of InfluenceMap, said: Although the global sales of electric vehicles continue to grow, the negative publicity by backward automakers, especially Japanese car companies, to protect their investments in fuel engine technology is still one of the biggest obstacles to scientific climate policies.
TapTechNews noticed that although Toyota is at the bottom, it is not the only automaker that does not act. InfluenceMap found that many automakers lobby through industry associations, such as the Alliance for Automotive Innovation in the United States and the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries in Australia, and these organizations have successfully weakened the recently announced climate policies in their respective countries.
Therefore, according to the assessment of InfluenceMap, no automaker can score a B grade, and if Tesla is ignored, no one can reach a C grade. At the same time, the think tank pointed out that among the 15 companies evaluated, only Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW are currently producing a sufficient number of green and environmentally friendly vehicles as planned to avoid the occurrence of climate disasters.
InfluenceMap believes that in order to achieve the updated 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature control target of the International Energy Agency and avoid the most serious harm caused by climate change, by 2030, 66% of the vehicles worldwide must be pure electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles or plug-in hybrid vehicles. But according to the current production trend, by 2030, only 53% of the cars will fall into one of the above categories.