A Toyota electric car on display at the 2022 New York Auto Show on April 13, 2022.
Scott Mill | CNBC
Shares in Japanese automaker Toyota surged 5% on Tuesday after the company said it would launch a full range of all-electric vehicles with “next-generation” batteries starting in 2026.
These will be developed and manufactured by a new EV division called BEV Factory, which was launched in May.
In a speech on Tuesday, Takero Kato, President of BEV Factory, Toyota has said it aims to have a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) for its electric vehicles. The BEV factory aims to produce about 1.7 million vehicles by 2030, Kato said.
In comparison, the Tesla Model 3 has a range of about 430 kilometers, while the Long Range version has a range of about 570 kilometers.
Toyota aims to achieve annual sales of 1.5 million pure electric vehicles by 2026 and 3.5 million pure electric vehicles by 2030.
Separately, the company is also developing a mass-production method for all-solid-state batteries for pure electric vehicles, with the goal of commercialization by 2027-2028.toyota said it will look for Its all-solid-state battery offers a 20% increase in range compared to existing batteries.
This joins a higher-spec model that is being researched and developed. Compared with existing products, the model aims to increase the cruising range by 50%.
A more pronounced shift to EVs?
Most notably, Toyota says it has discovered a technological breakthrough that could overcome the battery durability challenges of its all-solid-state batteries, and as a result, the company is “reviewing its introduction to conventional HEVs and accelerating (its) development as batteries for BEVs.”
HEV stands for Hybrid Electric Vehicle, which is a vehicle powered by a conventional internal combustion engine combined with one or more electric motors.
It could mark a continuing shift in the automaker’s EV strategy under new CEO Koji Sato, who took over in April. In February, Sato said the company would “accelerate the development of BEVs in a different way than before,” Nikkei reported.
Under former CEO Akio Toyoda, Toyota came under fire for its slow approach to all-electric vehicles, instead insisting that all-electric vehicles are a Solutions, not solutions, to meet the company’s goal of becoming carbon neutral. This strategy even continues until the end of 2022, when it introduces a new hybrid Prius model.
Toyota executives have argued they don’t think all-electric vehicles will be adopted as easily as rivals think, citing roadblocks among other reasons, and saying the market is “immature”.
Toyota says on its website The materials needed to produce one long-range all-electric vehicle battery could be used to produce six plug-in hybrid electric vehicle batteries, or 90 hybrid electric vehicle batteries.
A more aggressive push towards all-electric vehicles could be seen in Kato’s presentation, with the president of the BEV factory saying: “Our goal is to change the future with BEVs…the next generation of battery EVs will feature new batteries, through which we aim to To become the world leader in energy consumption of pure electric vehicles.”