TOKYO -- Longtime electric-car skeptic Toyota Motor Corp. is cracking the door for battery-powered vehicles to join its lineup -- at least for compliance purposes.
Despite not having a single electric vehicle in its lineup or any publicized plan to produce one, Toyota must be flexible enough to introduce the cars to markets in which regulations mandate them or the infrastructure is best suited to them, a senior company executive said.
"EVs do have many challenges," Executive Vice President Takahiko Ijichi said Tuesday, Nov. 8. "But different countries and regions have different energy policies, and depending on infrastructure availability, we would like to have a structure that allows us to consider the introduction of EVs."
Ijichi's comments show greater openness to pure electric vehicles, which Toyota has long held at arm's length, citing their high cost, limited driving range and lengthy recharging time.
Instead, Toyota has positioned hydrogen fuel cells as its long-term bet on green drivetrains. Ijichi, speaking at Toyota's quarterly earnings announcement, didn't waver from that stance.
"If you ask the question -- What is the ultimate environmentally friendly vehicle? -- we'll say it will be fuel cell vehicles. And our idea has not changed," Ijichi said. But, as a full-line automaker, Toyota must cover all alternative drivetrains, including battery-powered electric vehicles, he said.
Ijichi's comments came a day after Japan's Nikkei newspaper reported that Toyota was planning to jump into mass production of long-range EVs by 2020. Toyota will set up a team next year to develop EVs that can cruise more than 300 km (186 miles) on a single charge and sell them in Japan and other markets that promote EVs, such as California and China, it said.
On the eve of the Beijing auto show, Hiroji Onishi, head of Toyota's China operations, said China's fuel economy regulations will make it tougher for the company to reach its China sales goal of 2 million vehicles by around 2025. The rules are forcing Toyota to deviate from its product strategy centered around conventional hybrids. Those do not qualify for what China's regulators count as "new energy vehicle" credits for plug-in electric vehicles.
Toyota pulled the plug on its EV program in 2014, when it said it was ending a two-year deal to build electric Toyota RAV4 crossovers with Tesla Motors Inc. It said the same year it would end deliveries of its pint-sized eQ, a battery-driven car based on the Scion iQ three-seater.
