Toyota's Struggle and Future Plans in Electric Vehicles
TapTechNews May 23rd news, the chief executive of Toyota Motor's US branch, Ted Ogawa, frankly admitted that the company is currently behind Tesla, but the company is 'catching up' in electric vehicles and new technologies.
Toyota's electrification transformation can be described as faltering. The first electric vehicle bZ4X launched in the US has experienced a bumpy start (including recall incidents) and failed to make a big splash in the market.
Among the more than 2.2 million vehicles sold by Toyota in the US last year, only 9329 were pure electric vehicles, accounting for less than 0.5%. This trend continues this year. As of March, only 1897 bZ4X models have been sold, which is less than 0.4% of Toyota's more than 486,000 sales in the first quarter.
Ogawa said that Toyota is closely monitoring the demand for electric vehicles from customers. He said, 'We should have launched a BEV model 2 years ago, and that's why we are criticized. After more than 2 years of internal construction, we are catching up in electric vehicles and new technologies.'
In the interview, Ogawa said that Toyota headquarters is building a'very unique factory' for electric vehicles and will adopt a number of new technologies of the Toyota company. Toyota showed its next-generation electric vehicle production line last year, adopting the most popular Giga casting process of Tesla.
Toyota said that its 'rich knowledge reserve' about molds will help speed up the production speed. The company believes that it can shorten the preparation time for mold replacement from 24 hours to about 20 minutes.
Other technologies such as self-propelled assembly lines and robots are expected to minimize defects while maximizing efficiency.
Toyota also revealed a new electric vehicle battery plan last summer, which includes two next-generation batteries to be launched in 2027. The first 'high-performance' battery will have a range of more than 800 kilometers (497 miles), while the cost will be 20% lower than that of bZ4X.
At the same time, the 'popular' version to be launched in 2026-2027 is expected to have a range of more than 600 kilometers (372 miles) and a cost reduction of 40%. TapTechNews attached Toyota's roadmap as follows:
In the farther future (2027-2030), Toyota plans to launch a serie s of 'further evolved' batteries, including solid-state batteries with a range of more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) and 10-minute fast charging.