MILAN – “No customer should be left behind”. This is the message with which Toyota today announced the birth of a platform for a family of all-electric models, which will debut next year with the market launch of a small all-wheel drive SUV. “Cars have to be practical, because every customer has their own needs and different ways of using them,” said Masahiko Maeda, Toyota’s chief technology officer during a presentation held at the Shanghai Auto Show, where the Japanese house presented the concept of the next bZ4X, which in 2022 will be the first car to arrive at the dealership conceived on the basis of the new platform, developed in collaboration with Subaru and called e-Tnga.
“A group like ours has the opportunity to reap the benefits of a very diverse range of cars,” explained Matt Harrison, president and CEO of Toyota Motor Europe, focusing on the extreme variability of the electric car market in Europe. In the two months of January-February 2021, purely electric or plug-in electric models have now absorbed 20 per cent of registrations of all brands in Germany, 11 per cent in Belgium and the Netherlands, 10 per cent in France. Further back Italy, at 5 per cent, as well as Spain at 4. These numbers explain, on the one hand, why Toyota has decided to step up its offensive in the electric-only car, and on the other hand the reason why the Japanese company continues to focus on its own strength, that is the electric motor powered by the petrol one, without plug-in recharge socket (in acronym HEV).
Harrison showed the two countries that, in Europe, are at the extremes of such a diversified diffusion of different technologies. In Greece in the two-month period January-February, electrified cars covered only 5 per cent of sales, but thanks to HEX engines, Toyota has a much higher share, equal to 45 per cent of its sales (the rest are all internal combustion engines ). In Norway, the proportions are reversed: the share of electrified Toyota’s sales is close to 80 percent of the total, with a good half between traditional hybrids and the other between plug-in and full electric hybrids.
The full electric offensive will go live next year, with the launch of the first model bearing the “bZ” brand, which stands for “beyond zero”. By 2025, Toyota expects to exceed 70 electrified models globally. More than double the current ones, with more than 15 electric-only cars, from the current five. If in the past Toyota had seemed to move cautiously on full electric or plug-in, explained Maeda, it was only because the market was not yet ready: “For a car to be truly ecological, it must be well spread on the market.” And now that the market is there, the Japanese giant has decided to move with all its strength.
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