Toyota will be showcasing its vision for the future of transportation at the Japan Mobility Show 2023 (formerly known as the Tokyo Motor Show). Before that, Toyota shared with us some of its insights and targets for the near future. Of course, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the company is not going all in on EVs as it believes in a multi-pathway approach. Toyota is firm on this stance and has good reason to back it up.
During the pre-briefing, Toyota acknowledges that it “must integrate electrification, diversification, and intelligence to truly realize carbon neutrality and provide true value for mobility”. Toyota also acknowledges that it can’t do this alone and needs everyone to come along with them and join this journey.
An interesting insight shared by Toyota is the “material limitation & lead-time for mining readiness” for battery electric vehicles (BEVs). According to Toyota, this will cause battery supply restrictions and thus an efficient allocation of batteries to mass-electrified models should be considered.
Toyota gave an example of three groups of 100 cars – the first with 1 BEV and 99 ICE cars, the second with 4 PHEVs and 96 ICE cars, and the third with 55 HEVs and 45 ICE cars. The reason why there are more PHEVs and even more HEVs than there are BEVs in these sample sets is that they all add up to more or less the same battery capacity – 55 HEVs (with 1.3 kWh battery capacity each) total up to 71.5 kWh, which is about the same of what one single BEV would have (71.4 kWh for the bZ4x).
And with this battery capacity (or supply) distribution, the 55 HEVs combined with 45 ICE cars would have a lower average CO2 emission than 1 BEV and 99 ICE cars combined. The former with 177.6 g/km and the latter with 250.6 g/km. With this battery limitation in mind, Toyota’s argument does make some sense.
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What is also an important matter in the topic of carbon neutrality is the energy source itself, regardless of what the vehicle powertrain is. The current energy mix for most Asian countries is still dominated by fossil fuel and coal with renewable energies not exceeding 30% of that mix.
To tackle this, Toyota highlights the potential clean energy resources in Asian countries – India with sugarcane; Thailand with livestock manure, wind, & solar; Malaysia with palm oil, hydropower, and geothermal power. The latest development in this matter is Thailand’s first biogas-derived (chicken manure) hydrogen production that is now operational.
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As mentioned by Toyota before, it is firm on its multi-pathway approach. And this approach is a mix of ICE cars, HEVs, PHEVs, BEVs, and hydrogen-powered cars with each of them having its own unique role. One of the things that Toyota highlights is that HEVs will not require any behavioral change for the consumer (i.e. having to charge the car). It is also the more affordable xEV option. Toyota does not discredit fully-electric cars (BEVs) as they do play a big role in achieving carbon neutrality as well.
Toyota Asia emphasizes, “Toyota has been working on electrification for a long time and developed many commercially viable technologies like the HEV and FCEV. Beyond that, Toyota has also been providing solutions for all types of customers as you saw with the IMV and now the IMV0 Concept. But we realize that for advancing our Toyota Mobility Concept, we must integrate electrification, diversification, and intelligence to truly realize Carbon Neutrality and provide true Value for Mobility. We also recognize that we cannot do this alone and need everyone to come along with us and join this journey.”
