Toyota is slowly turning to all-electric cars, but the core focus remains on hybrids. The Japanese company aims for 500,000 EV sales globally in 2025, which would be just a fraction out of a total of 5.5 million electrified cars (mostly hybrids).

The reasons behind the addition of all-electric cars are stricter emission requirements in Europe and New Energy Vehicle quotas in China, which are too high to comply only using conventional hybrids or a marginal volume of hydrogen fuel cell cars.

"We won't be able to clear forthcoming regulations with hybrid vehicles, and EV and other technology will be necessary," said Executive Vice President Shigeki Terashi, who leads Toyota's electrification effort."

Toyota's EV take off will be really slow with only 10,000 units planned for 2020 and 30,000 for 2021.

The first new BEVs we should see later this year, including the Lexus UX 300e. At least 10 models are expected by 2025.

For comparison, the Volkswagen Group plan is 3 million BEVs annually by 2025, including 1.5 million by the Volkswagen brand.

On the positive side is that Toyota is working on a new e-TNGA platform (electric version of the global TNGA platform), which is a first step to increasing the volume.

Source: nikkei.com