Toyota global EV sales quadruple in 2023, still big gap with goal

TOKYO – Toyota’s global sales of electric vehicles more than quadrupled last year.

That might sound like a big jump for a company late to the EV race.

But the world’s biggest automaker still requires an exponential 15-fold leap over just the next two years to reach CEO Koji Sato’s proclaimed target of selling about 1.5 million EVs in 2026.

If, that is, demand really snowballs for Toyota’s battery-powered products.

In releasing 2023 sales results this week, Toyota said it sold 104,018 EVs worldwide last year. That is up from just 24,466 in 2022 and way up from just one, yes one, sold in 2018.

Overseas deliveries accounted for 97 percent of the 2023 EV volume, or about 101,000 vehicles.

The lopsided shipments underscore just how paltry domestic EV demand is in the company’s home market of Japan, despite the fact that most of those EVs are still manufactured locally.

Toyota’s EV total includes such nameplates as the Toyota bZ4X crossover and the Lexus RZ and Lexus UX all-electric offerings and the bZ3 sedan sold in China.

Its figures did not include a breakdown by nameplate or region. But the company sold 14,715 Lexus RZs and Toyota bZ4Xs in the U.S. last year, according to the Automotive News data center.

Toyota’s surge on such a limited lineup will have to pick up momentum.

Sato said last year, while outlining Toyota’s bolder EV ambitions, that his company plans to be in position to sell 1.5 million EVs in 2026. That is on its way to selling 3.5 million worldwide in 2030.

The automaker has not disclosed interim year-by-year EV sales targets.

Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported last September it notified suppliers of plans to sell 190,000 EVs in 2024 and 600,000 in 2025.

But in November, Toyota downgraded its worldwide EV sales forecast for the current fiscal year ending March 31. Toyota said it expects to sell only 123,000 full EVs this fiscal year, a 39 percent cut from its original plan of 202,000 EVs.

Last year, Toyota stormed ahead to all-time highs in global sales and production as the Japanese auto juggernaut put the microchip shortage behind it and ramped up factories to meet booming demand in the U.S. and Europe, especially for electrified vehicles.

Total global sales for the Toyota and Lexus brands reached an all-time high, advancing 7.7 percent to 10.3 million vehicles. Deliveries of electrified vehicles helped underpin the swing.

Sales of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell models rose 35 percent to a record 3.7 million. They accounted for about 36 percent of combined Toyota and Lexus sales.

In 2022, electrified offerings made up just 28 percent of Toyota and Lexus global sales.