Toyota shares rise after announcing plans for next-generation battery electric cars
- The new unit, called the BEV Factory, aims to produce electric vehicles with a range of 1,000 kilometers.
- BEV Factory will introduce a full range of battery electric vehicles with “next generation” batteries from 2026.
- This continues a more aggressive push by the Japanese automaker toward all-electric vehicles under new CEO Koji Sato.
A display of Toyota electrified vehicles at the 2022 New York Auto Show, April 13, 2022.
Scott Mill | CNBC
Shares in Japanese automaker Toyota rose 5% on Tuesday after the company announced it will introduce a full range of battery electric vehicles with “next generation” batteries from 2026.
These will be developed and produced by a new EV unit called BEV Factory, which was established in May.
In a presentation on Tuesday, Takero Kato, president of BEV Factory, said Toyota is aiming for a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) for its EVs. The BEV Factory aims to produce around 1.7 million vehicles by 2030, Kato said.
In comparison, the Tesla Model 3 has a range of approximately 430 kilometers, while the long-distance model has a range of approximately 570 kilometers.
Toyota has a goal of achieving sales of 1.5 million all-electric vehicles per year by 2026, and selling 3.5 million all-electric vehicles annually by 2030.
Separately, the company is also developing a method for mass-producing all-solid-state batteries for battery electric vehicles, and aims to commercialize this in 2027 to 2028. Toyota said it will look at a 20% improvement in cruising range for the whole thing. -solid-state batteries, compared to today’s batteries.
This is together with a higher specification model which is under research and development. This model aims for a 50% improvement in cruising range compared to the current product.
Most notably, Toyota said it has discovered a technological breakthrough that overcomes the challenge of battery durability in its all-solid-state batteries, and as such, the company is “reviewing its introduction to conventional HEVs and accelerating [its] development as a battery for BEVs.”
HEVs refer to hybrid electric vehicles, which are vehicles powered by a conventional internal combustion engine in combination with one or more electric motors.
This could signal a continued shift in the automaker’s EV strategy under new CEO Koji Sato, who took the helm in April. In February, Sato said the company will “accelerate the development of BEVs with a different approach than before,” Nikkei reported.
Under former CEO Akio Toyoda, Toyota had come under fire for its slow approach to all-electric cars, instead sticking to the belief that all-electric vehicles are a solution, not the solution, to the company’s goal of becoming carbon neutral. This strategy continued until the end of 2022, when it unveiled new hybrid Prius models.
Toyota executives had argued that they did not believe that all-electric vehicles will be adopted as easily as competitors believe, citing reasons such as roadblocks and saying that the market was not “mature enough.”
On its website, Toyota says the materials needed to produce one long-range, all-electric vehicle battery can be used to produce six plug-in hybrid vehicle batteries, or 90 hybrid electric vehicle batteries.
The more aggressive push for all-electric vehicles can be seen in Kato’s presentation, with the BEV Factory president saying that “our goal is to change the future with BEVs … next-generation battery EVs will adopt new batteries, through which we are determined to become the world leader in energy consumption for electric batteries.”
