Toyota amps up electrification goals

TOKYO — Toyota, responding to rivals' moves, is accelerating its electrification push to target combined global sales of 2 million battery-electric and fuel cell vehicles a year by 2030.

By then, Toyota Motor Corp. plans to sell 8 million electrified vehicles globally, including hybrids and plug-in hybrids. The goals represent a near quadrupling of the carmaker's worldwide tally in the latest fiscal year, when it sold 2.2 million electrified vehicles.

The ramp up to 8 million could represent a substantial chunk of Toyota's deliveries in 2030, given the fact it forecasts retail volume of all vehicles to reach 10.55 million this fiscal year.

In the critical U.S. market, where Toyota currently sells only one fuel cell vehicle and no battery-electric vehicles, the carmaker wants BEVs and fuel cells to account for 15 percent of sales by 2030. In that time frame, 70 percent of Toyota and Lexus sales in the U.S. will have some form of electrification.

Toyota joins the electric vehicle march in the U.S. next year with the new all-electric bZ4X crossover. The model also ushers in an EV subbrand — Beyond Zero — that will include six more bZ entries.

To speed the EV rollout, Toyota is targeting big reductions in development lead time.

Executives said development lead time for the bZ4X was about 30 percent shorter than for a traditional Toyota model. And the company expects to slash another 15 percent off the lead time of subsequent EV offerings.

To deliver the electrified vehicles, Operating Officer Jun Nagata said Toyota will require greater battery supplies. It will need 30 times the current amount of battery power, in terms of gigawatt-hours.

That will increasingly require Toyota to aquire batteries regionally, possibly from local sources in the U.S., Nagata said. Supply may be in-house or external, he added.

Said Nagata: "We will make aggressive investments so that we can realize that."