To describe Toyota's pace on the pure electric car track in one sentence, it is to get up early in the morning and catch a late set.
Recently, at Toyota's electric strategy conference, Toyota released five bZ series and four Lexus pure electric models, and also brought seven Toyota Lifestyle electric vehicle series, a total of 15 pure electric models, in addition, Toyota Group also increased investment in battery technology, from the original 500 billion yen (about 27.95 billion yuan) to 2,000 billion yen (111.8 billion yuan). Toyota's big-handedness makes people see the hard power of the world's first-selling car company, and also makes people wonder why Toyota Motor has to release so many pure electric models at once.
At present, Toyota's pure electric models on sale in China are only FAW Toyota Yize E Jinqing and GAC Toyota C-HR EV, both of which are oil-to-electric models. Looking at the frequent actions of Volkswagen, General Motors and other car companies in electrification, watching the market share of pure electric vehicles continue to increase, Toyota finally could not sit still and blew the rallying call to enter the pure electric vehicle market.
In fact, Toyota's attempt at electrification is not late, as early as 1996, Toyota launched the first pure electric model, that is, the first generation of RAV4 EV, starting in 2003, Toyota began to develop lithium batteries, and in 2008 began the development of solid-state batteries. However, due to the technology of the time, the battery at that time was gradually abandoned by Toyota because of its low energy density, slow charging speed, and so on. Toyota began to shift to hybrid models and hydrogen-fueled vehicles.
In 1997, Toyota launched the first generation of Prius, and then Toyota's hybrid was in full bloom, with strong applicability and low fuel consumption, Toyota hybrid models sold a total of 18 million vehicles worldwide. In 2014, Toyota launched the first generation of hydrogen fuel vehicle Mirai, the world's first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, which can achieve 3 minutes of hydrogen charging and a range of 600 kilometers, but limited by the price of hydrogen fuel vehicles, the cost of hydrogen refueling and the construction of hydrogen refueling stations, the sales of hydrogen fuel vehicles have not been high.
Toyota originally wanted to directly enter the era of hydrogen energy through hybrid vehicles as a transition, but what Toyota did not expect was that around 206, the cost of battery production dropped significantly, the mileage exceeded 500 kilometers, and now it has reached the nominal endurance of 1000 kilometers, and the charging time has also been greatly shortened, and the two countries in China and the United States under the subsidy of new energy policies, the popularity of electric vehicles is so fast that Toyota motor did not expect, Tesla, Bydir and other car companies have shown great competitiveness in the field of new energy, while other traditional car companies such as Volkswagen, General Motors, and Ford have also accelerated the transformation of electrification.
Toyota's pure electric model is late, until the end of 2020 Toyota's pure electric platform e-TNGA architecture was officially launched, compared to Volkswagen, GM and other car companies, Toyota in the electrification of some slow pace. Get up early in the morning, catch a late set, Toyota Motor released 15 models in one breath this time, it seems that it has finally returned to the taste, but is it still too late to make up for it?