Toyota reaffirms its commitment to hybrids but doubts near term future for pure EVs
Tue 25 September 2012
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Toyota has significantly cut back the scale of its planned launch of the all-electric minicar, the eQ. Toyota had announced plans for mass production of the electric version of the compact iQ but now plans to offer it on limited local release to selected users in Japan and the United States. The company has, however, refreshed its commitment to launch 21 hybrid models by 2016, expecting to sell at least a million vehicles a year by the middle of this decade.
Takeshi Uchiyamada, Toyota's vice chairman, is reported as saying: "The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society's needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge." Uchiyamada, who spearheaded Toyota's development of the Prius hybrid, felt that in the two years that have passed since the eQ was announced, too many difficulties have emerged to see the minicar become a success.
While Toyota had originally planned a global launch of eQs, expected to run in the thousands of units, it now expects to sell about 100 over the next year for demonstration projects in the U.S. and Japan starting in December.
Toyota, the leader in hybrid vehicle sales, has also confirmed plans to launch 21 new hybrid vehicles from now until the end of 2015, with a goal of selling at least one million units per year through to the middle of the decade. The company says that it still intends to launch a zero-emission battery-powered RAV4 SUV.
The company has previously said that it sees hybrid vehicles as the backbone of its future zero-emission vehicle development, because they reduce emissions and can allow for the advancement of lithium-ion batteries used for pure electric cars. It plans to launch hybrid versions of all of its models by 2020.
Toyota has also confirmed it is on track with plans to launch a hydrogen fuel cell powered sedan in 2015 and that it is accelerating its plans to launch a fuel cell bus in 2016, in partnership with Hino Motors. The company is reported to have made progress with the size and weight of the fuel-cell stacks for its fuel cell vehicles.
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