Akio Toyoda publicly bombarded electric vehicles again a few days ago. According to related reports, Akio Toyoda, chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation, said that even if electric vehicles have made great progress, hybrid vehicles are still the mainstream of the market, accounting for 70% of sales. And he stressed that the car with the engine will definitely stay.
In addition to this remark, Akio Toyoda also said that electric vehicles are not environmentally friendly: "Electric vehicles are low-level products, not new energy, and must be resisted to the end." He believes that the slowdown in Toyota's car sales also shows that boycotting electric vehicles is the right choice, and people need to realize that this technology is not carbon neutral.
From his point of view, it can be seen that he is more inclined to protect his own interests. On the one hand, he believes that hybrid cars are the best solution, which is exactly the technology that Toyota is "good at". At the same time, if the new energy through pure electric vehicles is fully adopted, it may lead to large-scale layoffs of traditional car companies such as Toyota, which is not conducive to the development of Japan.
It can be said that Toyota is the most successful car company in the era of fuel vehicles, but with the electrification transformation of the automobile market led by China and the United States in recent years, the market share of fuel vehicles has gradually shrunk, which has also caused Toyota, which relies on fuel vehicles, to decline in sales.
However, even if Toyota is placed among many traditional car companies, it can be regarded as a relatively slow electrification transformation. Unlike Volkswagen, GM is vigorously developing pure electric platforms. Although Toyota released 15 electric vehicles in one go at the end of 2021, judging from the performance of the first model in this series, the BZ4X, it is more like a pure electric version of the R**4. The second model, the BZ3, borrowed BYD's technology.
So far, the sales performance of these two models is not optimistic, with a total of 7,167 units sold in 2023, and it is worth mentioning that only 11 units were sold in December at the end of the year. The BZ3 sold 25,927 units a year, and only 1,537 units were sold in December.
Although Akio Toyoda is reluctant to admit that the automotive industry is moving towards electrification, more industry insiders believe that the competition in the new energy market will be more fierce in 2024, rolling into richer market segments, and the penetration rate will continue to rise. At that time, the share of fuel vehicles will be further eroded, and if Toyota continues to hesitate, the trend of falling behind will become more and more obvious.