Last year, almost at this time, President Akio Toyoda was interpreted as shelling electric vehicles because "electric vehicles are over-hyped, if the automotive industry rushes to electrification, the current business model will completely collapse", which is interpreted as shelling electric vehicles, and causing an uproar.
He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xiaopeng Automobile, as the head of the new car-making force in China, immediately shared the story of Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia in 2014 on the social platform, which probably means that Toyota was compared to nokia of the year, in the words of the then Nokia CEO, they did not do anything wrong, but they did not know why they lost.
However, on December 14, Toyota Motor Corporation announced "A Heartfelt Speech by President Akio Toyoda", which plans to introduce a total of 30 pure electric models in various fields, including passenger cars and commercial vehicles, by 2030, and continue to expand the "carbon neutral" model sequence by introducing pure electric models. By 2030, global annual sales of pure electric vehicles are planned to reach 3.5 million units.
The Lexus brand will achieve a full range of product lineups in all its models in 2030, and achieve 100% pure electric vehicle sales in China, North America and Europe, reaching the goal of global sales of 1 million units. By 2035, lexus product lines will be 100% electric models.
After reading this "speech" after that, people can't help but wonder how Akio Toyoda's views before and after this can have such a big contrast. In fact, this matter should be viewed from two aspects, first, to see what Akio Toyoda made on what occasions; second, to see what Toyota has done in the development trend of the entire automotive industry.
In response to the first point, There are actually many remarks about Toyoda Akio's shelling of electric vehicles, such as "to achieve carbon neutrality, the enemy is carbon dioxide, not the internal combustion engine", "pure electric vehicles will make Japan lose 5.5 million jobs and 8 million car production", "the more electric vehicles produced, the more serious carbon dioxide emissions" and so on, and for Tesla in the field of electric vehicles, he even made an analogy between the kitchen and the chef, "Tesla believes that their recipes will become the standard in the future, But what Toyota has is a real kitchen and a real chef. They're not making real stuff, people are just buying recipes. We had the kitchen and the chef and we could make real food. ”
These remarks were basically made at the Press Conference of the Japan Association of Automobile Manufacturers, and Akio Toyoda, president of the Japan Association of Automobile Manufacturers, is more based on japan's local energy structure, infrastructure, and even the employment level of automotive industry personnel. You know, the Japanese government released a "green growth plan" in December last year, planning to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, in the transportation industry and industry, Japan plans to stop selling fuel vehicles in the mid-2030s and switch to electrified models.
In fact, the formulation of an industry policy requires a combination of multiple factors to make a judgment. From the data point of view, the Japanese automotive industry in 2018 carbon dioxide emissions decreased by 22% compared with 2001, under the condition of JC08, the average fuel consumption in 2018 reached 22.6km/L, and the fuel consumption rate increased by 71%. Without a large-scale adjustment of energy policy, it will be difficult to achieve the 2050 carbon neutrality target.
"The spread of pure electric vehicles requires electric support, and in Japan, more than 70% of electricity is mainly supplied by coal and natural gas. Politicians have said that they want to ban fuel vehicles, and the seemingly environmentally friendly pure electric vehicles have only diverted the source of pollution from the exhaust of the car to the thermal power plant. ”
Japan's thermal power generation accounts for about 77%, and renewable energy and nuclear power account for about 23%. If from the perspective of electricity supply, the cars in the Japanese market are replaced by pure electric vehicles, and what is visible to the naked eye is that the demand for electricity will increase sharply. If so, Japanese car companies in Japan's home market may collapse. In terms of infrastructure such as charging equipment, it is necessary to increase the cost by about 14-37 trillion yen.
Therefore, Akio Toyoda's remarks are not simply to bombard the development of pure electric vehicles, but to deny the one-size-fits-all way to develop pure electric vehicles and find more energy alternatives to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality.
In response to the second point, in fact, Toyota set up an electric vehicle research and development department as early as 1992, and deployed pure electric, hybrid, hydrogen fuel cells and other models in advance, especially in hybrid and hydrogen fuel models, Toyota Prius and Mirai are basically benchmarks in this field. Even in the field of batteries, Toyota has been committed to independent research and development and production of batteries for many years, and established Prime Planet Energy & Solutions this year to integrate the battery business.
It is understood that in the past 26 years, Toyota has invested nearly 1 trillion yen and produced more than 19 million batteries, laying the foundation for the comprehensive development of electrified products. It is worth mentioning that Toyota will also increase the investment cost of batteries to 2 trillion yen, so as to achieve the production of more competitive batteries. Toyota has also advanced its carbon neutrality target to 2035, a point that is 15 years ahead of the Japanese government's plan.
At present, the Toyota brand has introduced about 100 models in more than 170 countries and regions, including fuel vehicles, hybrid vehicles, plug-in rechargeable hybrid vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The Lexus brand has introduced about 30 models in more than 90 countries and regions, including fuel vehicles, hybrid vehicles and plug-in rechargeable hybrids.
From the perspective of these product layouts, pure electric vehicles seem to be Toyota's "short board", but Toyota's BEV exclusive platform for bZ series models will give birth to more than 10 models, such as bZ Small Crossover, bZ SDN, bZ4X, bZ Compact SUV, bZ Large SUV in the Toyota Akio "speech", as well as Lexus RZ SUV, IS EV, a new generation of pure electric LFA, full-size pure electric SUV There are even Hilux pure electric pickup trucks and MR-2 pure electric version.
All in all, Akio Toyoda's previous remarks are not contradictory to Toyota's layout in the field of pure electric vehicles and even batteries, first of all, as the president of the Japan Automobile Association, it is necessary to explain to the government from the real situation of the automobile industry, so there is a so-called shelling of pure electric. However, as Toyota Motor, in the end, the arm can not twist the thigh, in the context of achieving the "double carbon" goal, Toyota if it wants to make a difference in the pure electric vehicle market, it must face the challenge of Tesla and the Volkswagen Group in the transition to electric vehicles.
After Akio Toyoda's remarks on the development of pure electric vehicles, Toyota Motor was once believed to gradually withdraw from the historical stage in the era of pure electric vehicles. Interestingly, after the pure electric vehicle model released by Toyota on December 14, some car bloggers sighed: "Look at the small picture and think it is Evergrande!" "If Akio Toyoda reads it, what he may think in his heart is: Let's walk and see!"