Original: Zhang Yue
Not long ago, Toyota head Akio Toyoda shelled that "too many electric vehicles will make Japan's power supply shortage", but on December 14, Toyota released 15 new pure electric vehicles at the global electric vehicle strategy conference, and even completely abandoned fuel vehicles, saying no, physically but very honest, why would Toyota do this?
Hasn't Toyota been advocating hydrogen fuel cell vehicles before? Why not focus on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, but release more production models in electric vehicles? Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association of Automobiles, told the car editor of The "Finance and Economics Point Network" that the reason why Toyota is making efforts on electric vehicles is a world trend, and Toyota must also keep up with the changes seen in Europe and the United States.
Automotive analyst Lin Xie believes that hydrogen fuel vehicles in the passenger car mass production scale still has a long way to go, first of all, because the cost can not be reduced, private purchases will be very little, more environmental protection agencies, government agencies for promotion and procurement, secondly, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are currently more suitable for commercial vehicles, because commercial vehicles do not emphasize charging speed and mileage, and do not need to build hydrogen refueling stations in downtown areas, while the activity trajectory of commercial vehicles, the length of time spent, the intensity of vehicles are relatively fixed, Easy cost control.
Whether the big gamble can succeed
Whether driven by the external environment or based on realistic considerations, Toyota needs to make efforts in the field of pure electric vehicles. But this time, the plan to invest $35 billion, is it really possible to harvest a wave of users by the expected sales of 3.5 million electric vehicles per year in 2030? To know that the pure electric vehicles launched by Toyota before are not good in domestic takeaway, the reason is that these cars are basically oil-to-electricity electric vehicles, and the price is not cheap.
Does the pure electric vehicle launched this time come from a pure electric platform? If it is a pure electric platform, it must sell well? His peer Volkswagen MEB pure electric platform under the series of models are not selling well despite sparing no effort to market and promote, it seems that foreign brands except Tesla, other brands of electric vehicles are not selling well in China.
Why is the Chinese market not friendly to the old players of these car circles? Auto analyst Lin Xie believes that their localization is not enough, now China's electric vehicle companies are very strong, consumers on the electric vehicle brand cognition in addition to Tesla more recognition of Chinese brands, rather than other traditional fuel vehicle brands, which is the embarrassing situation encountered by many foreign car companies.
"How to make consumers change their perception of buying electric vehicles from traditional car companies requires traditional car companies to change their concepts and launch new electric vehicle brands, rather than under the Toyota brand, which always makes consumers feel like a fuel car."
"In addition, Japanese car companies have never attached importance to the Internet of Vehicles and human-computer interaction, and Toyota can do a better job in autonomous driving, vehicle networking and human-computer interaction, otherwise it will still be a huge challenge to enter the Chinese and American markets in the future." Auto analyst Lin Xie said.
Toyota is still in the evaluation phase
According to Japanese media reports, although Toyota plans to launch 30 electrified models worldwide by 2030, Lexus will transform into a pure electric brand; although Toyota's overall goal is to sell 3.5 million electric vehicles by 2030; although the 15 new electric vehicle models unveiled at the conference are all concept cars intended to be used for production, under this strong electric vehicle offensive, Toyota's head Akio Toyoda still adheres to his position, that is, "the market and customers are the choices".
During the Q&A session of the press conference, Akio Toyoda said that even at this time, Toyota is still in the evaluation stage, rather than choosing and concentrating on what to do. "Don't set priorities, try to do everything as hard as you can, because striving to be carbon neutral is not just a matter for Toyota, but for the automotive industry as a whole."
So far, Toyota has been wary of the rapid adoption of electric vehicles, and the head of the company, Akio Toyoda, has often warned of "public opinion that only promotes electric vehicles." For Toyota's global electric vehicle strategic plan, some Japanese netizens commented that although the figures in this plan can be comparable to the annual figures of Mercedes-Benz and BMW, the public still insists that "Toyota is not serious about electric vehicles" or "Toyota is not interested in electric vehicles".
In response to the outside world's unpopular evaluation of Toyota's electric vehicles, Akio Toyoda said at a press conference that if Toyota is a company that is not positive even if it sets a target of 3.5 million vehicles or launches 30 models, how should we evaluate us? We're working very all the options. Akio Toyoda stressed his intention to promote electric vehicles in the same way as other new energy vehicles, such as hybrid vehicles and fuel cell vehicles.