The launch of the RZ Lexus, the first electric vehicle in this range, reinforced Toyota‘s strategy to accelerate its electrification plans in the coming years.
Starting in 2023, the company’s new board of directors emphasized that this year will be crucial in the strategy to lead the zero-emission car market, so far dominated by Tesla.
Toyota’s new President and CEO, Koji Sato, presented the new roadmap, which includes ten new models and the goal of increasing its sales of electric vehicles to 1.5 million per year by 2026.
Toyota thus aims to improve its positioning of a fast-growing market in which it occupies a discreet share and where it is increasingly lagging behind competitors such as Tesla or China’s BYD.
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Current Figures
During 2022, Toyota sold 21,260 battery electric vehicles, which represents less than 1% of the global market, and far behind the figures of Tesla (1.27 million) and BYD (810,000), which occupy first and second place worldwide by sales figures, according to comparative data from S&P Global Mobility.
Sato assured that the company is intensifying its efforts to be at the forefront of the market in order to achieve carbon neutrality.
The maker of Prius, the first non-plug-in hybrid passenger car produced on a large scale, said that in addition to boosting its line of 100% electric vehicles, it will also maintain its commitment to hybrids and fuel cell cars.
“In an era of rapid change, the most important thing is to increase what we do at many speeds,” Sato said of the company’s new strategy, which will include “a new type of management in which teams will work organically and simultaneously.”
Toyota CFO, Yoichi Miyazaki, noted that expanding electric vehicle production has always been part of the company’s strategy, but they have been “looking for the right time to announce it.”
“Producing batteries in the most productive way is the key to making electric vehicles, and we have been carefully investigating this issue,” Miyazaki added.
