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Is it possible to jump into the electric car when your CEO does not finish believing in it? This is what they should ask in Toyota’s bosom, with the company looking for the right strategy to be competitive in the electric car while their mandamás does not stop launching slogans that point to immobility.
For a long time, the company has been launching contradictory messages on the future of the electric car. In 2021the Japanese company assured that would launch 30 electric models In the coming years. However, the arrival of TOYOTA BZ4X It has been marked by problems. First because it was a car too expensive for the autonomy offered. Then because The wheels could fall In an emergency braking.
From then on, the statements of the company’s managers and ads seem to go in opposite directions. Aky Time will prove them and that the demand for electric will never exceed a third of sales Total worldwide.
It is true that the company has redefined its plans and that will produce a third less of expected electric cars. But it has also presented a new generation of batteries and has confirmed that it will continue to pushing to jump into the electric car where regulations push them to it. That is: Europe. Among the last releaseswe will have a totally electric Toyota C-HR, a new lexus and a small Yaris Cross with the same technology.
Be that as it is, the truth is that Hybrid has continued to give excellent results To the company. Their sales fired in the United States last year, remain very fortunate in Europe and in Japan it seems that they do not even consider the change to this technology. Toyota last year recorded the best numbers in its history.
And in the middle of this strategy to continue increasing the offer of electric cars, a product that seems to divide the company: a sports car.
“Noise and smell of gasoline”
A few months ago, at the end of 2024, we knew that Toyota was developing a sports car completely electric. There was even talk that he could recover a mythical name for the company: MR2 or Celica. It would not be the first time that Toyota looked up at the past to look to her future. That they tell the Toyota supra.
Since then, the Rumors They have been unleashed and as on so many other occasions the true sportsmanship of such a model has been questioned. Move the sensations of combustion engines to electric models is being a real headache and brands such as Mazda have also presented their doubts Given this possibility.
The problem for Toyota is double. The company has spent many years being bored branded. Akio Toyoda, at the head of the company, wanted to completely turn this speech. To the point that we have seen almost unique cars in the market like the Toyota gr yaristhe Toyota Gr86 or the supra.
And now, with an electric sports car on the way, we also know that the company looks for solutions to Continue offering combustion engines. To the point of trying Inject hydrogen. Toyoda seems to live its own crusade for saving this type of vehicles.
“There will always be people in Toyota passionate about the development of electrical sports. But for me, as an expert pilot, my sports definition is something with the smell of gasoline and a noisy engine.” The words are from Akio Toyoda in a recent interview of Automotive News.
It has made clear one thing: they will not offer an electric sports car as long as it is not economically viable. And it won’t be until they get “affordable batteries”. The reason, for Toyoda, is that a competition electric car “is not exciting. Because you cannot turn the circuit around for more than an hour. The races in which I participate are mainly resistance, so with current electric vehicles, it will not be a car race. It is a cargo time race, battery change or something like that,” he stressed.
When will we see a Toyota electric sports car? The group’s CEO seems to have cooled expectations. In the last Brussels Motor Show, our companions of Motorpasion They had the opportunity to talk to Hideaki Iida, prototype designer Toyota ft-sebut he already warned that the car was in a very early phase of development.
However, in 2023 Toyota did talk about offering solid state batteries on the market that would yield 1,000 kilometers and went from 10 to 80% of autonomy in 10 minutes. This is what they called batteries High Performance and? They dated between 2027 and 2028 although they warned that they would put themselves in the street only in cars of very high benefits because they were very expensive to produce.
Photo | Toyota
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