Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the recipient of a $7 million loan from Toyota Motor Corp. to help establish a network of hydrogen refueling stations.
LOS ANGELES -- Toyota Motor Corp. is walking away from building longer-range battery-electric vehicles in favor of its effort in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, its top North American executive said.
At a time when EV maker Tesla Motors is the darling of Wall Street, Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota’s North American region, said Toyota sees battery-electric vehicles as viable only in “a select way, in short-range vehicles that take you that extra mile, from the office to the train, or home to the train, as well as being used on large [corporate] campuses.
“But for long-range travel primary vehicles, we feel there are better alternatives, such as hybrids and plug-in hybrids, and tomorrow with fuel cells,” Lentz said in an interview after Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Green conference.
Because hydrogen fuel cells are cheaper on a cost-per-vehicle basis and are more efficient on a well-to-wheel basis, Toyota has turned away from a 20-year effort to create a viable battery-electric vehicle.
Lentz’s comments come on the heels of Toyota’s decision to end its r&d deal with Tesla to supply the RAV4 EV. Lentz said the deal, through which Toyota agreed to buy Tesla components for 2,600 RAV4 EVs over three years, “was never about open-ended volume. It was time to either continue or stop. My personal feeling was that I would rather invest my dollars in fuel cell development than in another 2,500 EVs.
Lessons learned
“We learned a lot about being a smaller entrepreneurial company in the auto business and being faster to market,” Lentz said. “They learned about our quality control. It was more about two types of companies working together than about batteries. We’re not anti-battery. We are a big battery company. We have 6 million hybrids running on batteries.”
Not that Toyota has done poorly investing in Tesla. When Toyota President Akio Toyoda joined forces with Tesla CEO Elon Musk in 2010 with a $50 million capital infusion, there was no way Toyota would know the investment would be worth 10 times as much today on Wall Street.
“It’s done OK,” Lentz said, with a hint of sarcasm. “It’s an investment and we have to treat it like an investment. If it were my money in my pocket, I would take a little off the table. But it’s a [Toyota Motor Corp.] investment, so I don’t control it.”
