Akio Toyoda, President and CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation.
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Detroit- Toyota Automotive The stock had its best week since 2009 on Friday as the automaker laid out a robust plan for a future of all-electric vehicles and company scion Akio Toyoda became leader of the Japanese company’s board .
Shares of Toyota closed at $164.35 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, down 2.3% on the day, but still up 10.6% for the week. The five-day gain was the stock’s best week since April 2009, when shares rose 14.5%.
This rebound is not typical for stocks. It was only the third double-digit weekly gain in more than two decades for a relatively well-performing but underwhelming stock. So far in 2023, the company’s shares are up 20%.
This year’s positive growth comes as recent supply chain issues in the auto industry, including Toyota’s, eased, and after the company founder’s grandson, Akio Toyoda, announced plans to transition from CEO to CEO after leading the automaker for more than 13 years. after the chairman.
Akio Toyoda, who stepped down as CEO on April 1 and was succeeded by Koji Sato, has faced criticism from some environmental groups and investors for not going all-in on electric vehicles and continuing to make hybrids and plug-in vehicles. Hybrids such as the Prius and Prius Prime.
Toyota 2023 stock.
While ramping up investment in electric vehicles, Toyota executives see such cars and trucks as a solution, not a solution, to meeting increasingly stringent global emissions standards and becoming carbon neutral.
In an effort to dispel doubts about its strategy, the automaker gave a rare behind-the-scenes peek at its future plans.
“Management has rarely disclosed details of the technologies being developed in the past, and we sense the new management team is committed to securing competitive strength through electrification and intelligence,” JPMorgan analyst Akira Kishimoto said in an investor note this week.
Toyota outlined plans for a new generation of electric vehicles to rival industry leaders ahead of its annual meeting on Wednesday tesla and China’s BYD. The company said it plans to roll out its next-generation electric vehicles starting in 2026, including cars with its much-touted “solid-state batteries” by 2027 or 2028.
Solid-state batteries can be lighter, have higher energy density and provide more range at a lower cost than today’s electric vehicles that run on lithium-ion batteries.
Toyota’s EVs are targeting a range of 1,000 kilometers, or 620 miles, said Takero Kato, president of Toyota’s battery electric vehicle plant. The plant aims to produce about 1.7 million vehicles by 2030, he said.
UBS analyst Kohei Takahashi said on Tuesday: “In our view, the strategic focus for 2025-30 is on differentiation (in terms of technology and business model) rather than scale, and the company’s strong ability to develop technology for this is a long-term positive. factors,” in an investor note.
Following the announcement, Toyota shareholders on Wednesday approved the company’s new leadership and rejected a shareholder proposal requiring Toyota to review its climate-related lobbying — a vote based on a company recommendation.
——CNBC michael bloom and Lim Hui Jie contributed to this report.