Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda has reinforced his company’s commitment to prioritising hybrid vehicles (HEVs) over battery-electric vehicles (EVs or BEVs), outlining that hybrids are its ideal way forward when it comes to reducing total CO2 emissions.
Speaking through an interpreter in a recent interview with Automotive News, Toyoda-san said Toyota is as committed to reducing the environmental impact of cars as another brand, but has adopted a cost- and time-effective approach to go about reducing its carbon emissions.
“When the term ‘carbon neutrality’ began to turn out to be popular and we began to listen to about it, we set our goal as an organization saying that for us, the enemy is carbon,” he said.
“The best way that we considered it was that we’re not going to contribute to achieving carbon neutrality just by constructing BEVs, but we have now to concentrate on things that we are able to do now in order that, immediately, we are able to reduce CO2 from the air.
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“We checked out ourselves [and asked] ‘what can we do with the things that we have now to contribute to carbon neutrality?’ That was the bottom of how we made our decision in those times, and that has not modified now, and is not going to change for the long run.”
Toyoda-san is referring to the widespread rollout of hybrid vehicles, which dominate the Japanese brand’s current model range.
Toyota is credited with creating the primary mass-produced hybrid automobile within the late Nineties, and has continued to develop the technology to the market-leading status it holds today.
The corporate’s passenger automobile lineup is now dominated by hybrids, evidenced by the Japanese brand’s Australian axing of all petrol versions of cars that provide hybrid options in 2024.
Hybrids proceed to play a big role in Toyota’s global efforts too, not least in its home country. Toyoda-san claims that over the past five years, the concentrate on hybrids played a bigger role in reducing Japanese CO2 emissions than EVs.
Above: Toyota Hybrid range
“If you happen to can check the info for every country in regards to the CO2 emission situation for the past five years, it’s going to be very clear,” Toyoda-san said.
“For Japan, we had this weapon of hybrid vehicles, so with the hybrid vehicles, we were capable of reduce 23 per cent of CO2 emissions in the identical [time], and it was the one country that was capable of achieve that.”
Toyoda-san added that his company has produced and delivered upwards of 27 million hybrids to this point, and claimed that figure was “such as nine million BEVs when it comes to the contribution to carbon neutrality”.
“The hybrids that we made and sold had the identical impact as nine million BEVs on the road, but when we were to make nine million BEVs in [Japan] it might have actually increased the CO2 emissions, not reduced, because we’re counting on thermal powerplants.”
Despite that, Toyoda-san reaffirmed that HEVs aren’t the one way forward, pointing to Toyota’s continued development of internal combustion petrol and diesel engines (ICEs), in addition to EVs, plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).
Toyota recently revealed the next-generation RAV4 mid-size SUV (above), which shall be the brand’s first PHEV in Australia. The Mirai FCEV is currently getting used by corporate fleets and government partners locally via very limited leases, too.
The Japanese auto giant can be a part of an alliance with Subaru and Mazda to develop lower-emission ICEs into the long run.
“I believe we shouldn’t just concentrate on [BEV] … but we should always take a look at all the choices that we have now and work in all directions,” Toyoda-san said.
“That shall be much like considering as an individual of the planet, not only from one perspective, but interested by the entire planet, after which we are able to think in regards to the various options and take the movements to scale back CO2 as much as possible.
“I imagine if everyone can support this manner of considering, it should be for the advantage of all of the stakeholders too.”
This Article First Appeared At www.carexpert.com.au
