At the inaugural Japan Mobility Show in 2023, Toyota got flak for its “Multi-Pathway Approach.” At the time, the carmaker’s non-committal to an all-electric future, when so many of its compatriots and competitors have, was seen as a sign of weakness; a sign that Toyota perhaps has lost its competitive edge. Two years later, Toyota is having the last laugh.
Just as other carmakers are scrambling to right their course, reversing back to technologies such as hybrids, Toyota is staying the course; continuing its commitment to provide mobility for all, while also carving a path towards carbon neutrality.
To achieve this, Toyota is set on developing models that suit the region as opposed to doing a “one size fits all approach.” This regionalization is based on a long-term, customer-centric view where models and nameplates—some of which include the Avanza, Innova, and Fortuner—have become intrinsically linked to a region’s culture. In turn, they become emotional, aspirational choices.
However, mobility needs in Asia are diverse. Vehicles for this region must content with scenarios ranging from nicely-paved urban avenues to muddy, pothole-ridden dirt trails. Toyota’s secret, therefore, is to design and engineer vehicles which not only meet the needs of the roads they’re driven on, but consider the available energy infrastructure as well.
Toyota looks at reducing carbon emissions from an overall perspective and considers how to best utilize the finite resources. While other carmakers, for example, will focus on rolling out one battery electric vehicle, Toyota can roll out an equivalent 92 hybrid electric vehicles by distributing the available battery capacity across different powertrains. This results in a 45 percent net emissions drop in the process.
Only possible thanks to Toyota’s Multi-Pathway approach, it can offer customers with a choice of sustainable solutions. This strategy, which accounts for a region’s energy mix, also considers, of course, the specific needs and requirements of a particular region. These include flex-fuel hybrids, small hybrid electric vehicles, and even internal combustion engine vehicles powered by sustainable fuel.
This is shown by how Toyota plans to re-invent the best-selling car of all time: the Corolla. Though it’s the car for the majority, the majority don’t necessarily want the same answer. Thus, beneath the new, cutting-edge design, it will sport various powertrain options allowing regions to choose whatever powertrain works best.
The electrified Corolla is part of Toyota’s broader plan to roll out more than 10 electrified vehicles across the region in the next two years. Just recently, the carmaker has announced plans to produce BEVs in both Thailand and Indonesia, including the Hilux EV.
Through its 30 x 30 Mission, Toyota is targeting 30 percent of all sales in ASEAN to be electrified by 2030. By then, cumulative electrified vehicle sales are expected to surpass 1.5 million units—equivalent to the environmental impact of planting 25 million trees, or reducing 8 million tons of CO2 emissions.
Toyota has the last laugh all the way to the bank🤑🤑🤑
ReplyDeleteSometimes it pays to be cautious
ReplyDeleteSo when will Toyota roll out solid-state batteries?
ReplyDeleteI find this 'last laugh' bit and other parts of this flowery article unconvincing.
ReplyDeleteThey may be 'moving forward as planned' while others are instead increasing their hybrid focus (which may seem like going backwards) but it doesn't change the technology lead the other companies had achieved by committing more early on (even if it did not pay off as much for them as they had hoped due to less demand than they thought).
It's not a literal race where the other runners had to run back to the starting line and run back out again😄
If the market starts leaning more into BEVs then those companies can easily fall back on their ready-to-use tech and churn out BEVs again at lower costs easily since they already paid their R&D bills. And all that early early investment other companies put into pure electrification is still useful for hybrid applications. In line with that, one reason current Toyota EV products are pricier is because they're using other companies' tech/cars.
So it seems like they are saying they are going to put in MORE money into the tech but since they're doing a "one size fits all" approach it's unlikely going to be AS MUCH money as others HAD ALREADY sunk into EV tech. Their engineers will have to leap-frog the milestones other companies had achieved while working with less money in order to catch up as well as to reduce manufacturing costs.
It's not impossible (there are great minds at Toyota), but much of the new innovations are patented so if they can't come up with alternatives cheaply then they will have to pay to use the tech other companies developed first or keep paying their engineers until they have home-grown tech they don't need to pay more for - but again how much money/time will it take them to get there because they started late?
And there are potential drawbacks to such an approach. If an architecture is not from-the-ground-up EV-first (which has incredible space savings for more interior room) then having cars that are sold in both ICE/P/HEV and EV models will have the drawbacks of the engine-carrying cars like having less interior space because of all the engine-related stuff (like having a center-tunnel in the car when an EV doesn't have a driveshaft/transmission tunnel - you can see this with several EU brands). But if they do choose to make sure the EV models will have EV design benefits then that means they need to have separate assembly lines which means more costs.
All that and Toyota's target for ASEAN of 30% of all sales being electrified is STILL BELOW the targets of other companies like Honda (2030: Achieve 40% of global vehicle sales to be BEVs and FCVs), or Mazda (By 2030, 100% of Mazda products will be electrified and pure-electric vehicles will account for 25 to 40% of those). So their stated ambitions are...still not that ambitious.
And even more than that, they're not even talking about battery tech! Batteries are so much of the cost of electrifying vehicles but they're not saying what path they will take (what type of composition?). What do they think will be the winning battery of the future? LFP? Solid State? Maybe they don't want to share that and are holding that close to their chests. But the leading battery companies are not shy when talking about how much better their tech will be (in the next few years!). CATL, BYD, Tesla (through Panasonic) like to show off their tech, so Toyota needs to show off too, or pick one of the above.
I know this is mostly marketing talk for the general public but it comes off like a strong perfume trying to mask an unflattering reality.
P.S. There's a correction needed for "Vehicles for this region must content with", I believe it should be "contend."