Released 15 pure electric vehicles in one go, in addition to Evergrande, I am the second time to see so many new energy vehicles released in a concentrated manner. Recently, Akio Toyoda hosted a press conference on the company's battery electric vehicle strategy, revealing no less than 15 Toyota and Lexus electric models, as well as the new Toyota bZ4X that will be launched next year.
In his speech, Akio Toyoda announced that Toyota will launch 30 BEV models and predicts that global BEV sales will reach 3.5 million by 2030. He also said that by 2030, the Lexus brand will be 100% electrified in Europe, North America and China. Compared to other luxury brands, Toyota and Lexus are very slow.
Through this conference, I did not feel that Toyota had any domineering attitude in terms of new car releases, and even the timetable for transformation was not special, but through the conference, I felt Toyota's anxiety.
[1] In terms of new energy, Toyota has made two strategic mistakes?
In terms of new energy vehicles, Toyota motor has made two strategic mistakes. Once, the patented oil-electric hybrid technology was not disclosed, resulting in only a few brands such as Toyota being used now. The second is to vigorously develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, missing the rise of pure electric vehicles.
Toyota can be said to be the first in the world to start involved in new energy vehicles, and it is also the first to achieve commercialization. In 1997, the Prius's oil-electric hybrid car had been commercialized, and Toyota single-handedly controlled the price within a reasonable range.
But Toyota's mistake is that it is too much of a treasure in the oil-electric hybrid technology, holding the patent, resulting in other car brands either not doing it or bypassing Toyota's patents. Therefore, oil-electric hybrids could have become more popular and popular, and now only Toyota and a few brand manufacturers insist on oil-electric hybrids. Later, Tesla and other pure electric companies began to actively open patents to other companies for free. The purpose is to make the entire market prosperous, and each manufacturer can get a considerable profit.
Secondly, although Toyota is a very early company to implement electrification, it regards FCVs (hydrogen fuel cell vehicles) as the ultimate new energy technology model, while pure electric drives are defined by Toyota as the basic technology that supports HEVs, PHEVs, and FCVs. In the field of commercial application technology of electric vehicles, Toyota has not developed in depth for a long time, thus forming a strange phenomenon of "technology without products".
This has led to the fact that so far, Toyota does not have an exclusive pure electric vehicle platform, and the only few pure electric vehicle models are also oil-to-electricity models. Compared with other brands of pure electric vehicle platforms, Toyota is powerless. Perhaps Toyota itself did not expect that the pure electric vehicle market can have such a large scale.
[2] Pure electric technology is lagging behind, Toyota has opened the replacement mode?
Since it has fallen behind in pure electric technology, how does Toyota do it? It is to replace pure electric technology with its own hybrid technology. In September 2019, Toyota and GAC signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement to license hybrid technology and hydrogen fuel cell technology to GAC. And GAC's pure electric vehicle technology, to Toyota.
In the cooperation of electric technology, GAC and Toyota have intersected before - GAC New Energy independently developed the Aian S, the whole set of technology was introduced into the joint venture company GAC Toyota, the electric vehicle built is listed under the name of GAC Toyota iA5, and it is still hung with the GAC motor standard.
Therefore, Toyota took out its own hybrid technology at the bottom of the pressure box in exchange for the pure electric technology of GAC Group. Looking at it this way, Toyota is no longer a leader in the automobile market, but a follower of the market.
[3] Left behind by the new forces and left behind by volkswagen, Toyota is really in a hurry!
Toyota is not without pure electric vehicle technology, Toyota has developed an exclusive platform for e-TNGA pure electricity. However, no model of this platform has yet been mass-produced. The fastest is also 2022, and looking at Volkswagen's MEB platform, Hyundai's E-GMP platform has already launched exclusive models. Therefore, before the mass production of Toyota's e-TNGA pure electric exclusive platform model, Toyota can only watch Volkswagen, Hyundai, and a number of pure electric vehicle manufacturers seize the market.
Therefore, this time, Toyota Motor corporation announced a high-profile investment of $35 billion in the development of electric vehicles, and Lexus will also turn into a pure electric brand. Toyota plans to release 30 electric vehicles and sell 3.5 million new energy vehicles by 2030. This is not a rhetoric, but Toyota's current approach that has to be made up.