Is it too late for the Giants to awaken?
Standing in front of 16 pure electric vehicles on December 14, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda shouted with both arms: These new cars will be launched in the near future, and announced plans to invest $35 billion in electric vehicle development, and is expected to sell 3.5 million electric vehicles per year in 2030.
In May this year, the value was 2 million units, and just a few months later, Toyota significantly increased its sales target for new energy vehicles by 75%. At the press conference, Akio Toyoda said that some people may accuse him of not having a high proportion of promised sales, but this is not fair. "3.5 million cars is actually a huge number, which is almost daimler's annual production," he said. ”
Toyota also announced plans to turn all models sold by its luxury brand Lexus in Europe, the United States and China into pure electric vehicles by 2035, and set an annual sales target of 1 million vehicles. This also means that in the next ten years, Lexus will take the lead in transforming into a pure electric brand within Toyota.
split
At present, traditional car manufacturers can be said to be in a state of "schizophrenia".
On the one hand, the foundations of the traditional internal combustion engine field make them deeply unwilling to transform; on the other hand, they are forced by regulations to actively transform.
Among them, Toyota, as one of the world's largest car companies, is the most typical. Only a few months ago, Akio Toyoda was actively campaigning for a "no-oil" climate treaty, repeatedly stressing that electric vehicles are not environmentally friendly and appearing to be staunch opponents of electrification. Now, with such a radical plan for electrification, this punch in the face should not come too soon.
In fact, under the memory of the Internet, Akio Toyoda has long been labeled as a "conservative".
Since December last year, Akio Toyoda has dissed pure electric cars in at least three public occasions: "The more electric vehicles we produce, the more serious the carbon dioxide emissions." "If Japan's policy decision on banning fuel vehicles is too hasty, the current business model of Japan's traditional automotive industry will collapse, many companies will die, upfront investment funds will be wasted, and millions of people will lose their jobs."
Akio Toyoda has also warned that a hasty shift to electric vehicles could weaken the network of suppliers of traditional gasoline-powered vehicles, in which case "the current business model of the automotive industry will collapse."
As soon as this remark came out, it caused many people to criticize: "Toyota can't do electric vehicles well, so it is electric black; today's Toyota is obviously nokia ten years ago." ”
As we all know, Toyota was once the world's most valuable automobile manufacturer, but this situation is now broken by an electric vehicle company.
In June last year, Tesla's market value surpassed Toyota's, and then Tesla's stock price continued to soar, and today, Tesla's market value has exceeded $700 billion, more than three Toyotas.
Even so, Toyota is still full of disdain for Tesla.
In Akio Toyoda's view, although Tesla's market value is indeed quite high, "it does not make real things." He believes that Tesla's business is a restaurant that is still promoting novel recipes, and Toyota is more like a restaurant that already has a large number of customers.
"On the share price side, we are losing money, but on the product side, we have a complete menu for our customers to choose from." Akio Toyoda said the "full menu" he was referring to cover core businesses such as internal combustion engines, pure electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles.
However, according to the latest data analysis, from July to September 2021, Toyota's financial report hit a record high although net profit. However, Toyota's net profit per vehicle is nearly 3 times worse than Tesla's, Toyota's profit per vehicle is 250,000 yen, tesla is as high as 730,000 yen, the gap is 3.2 times higher than a year ago.
pursue
Everything may stem from a wrong prejudgment.
Toyota has insisted that the long-term solution to global warming should be hybrids, electric vehicles and hydrogen-powered vehicles, rather than betting solely on battery-powered cars. But this view has left Toyota behind.
In fact, Toyota was one of the first car companies in the world to set foot in electrification technology. As early as 1997, Toyota launched its first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle, the PRIUS.
After four generations of change, Toyota Prius once occupied more than 80% of the global hybrid car market, becoming synonymous with "environmentally friendly cars" in that era.
However, in the rising new energy track, pure electricity has become a well-deserved seed player, while hybrid is relatively niche.
According to the data, in 2012, the sales of the four Prius models were 237,000 units. In 2020, that total is less than a third of what it was six years ago (including Prius Prime plug-in hybrids).
In addition, in the field of heavily bets on hydrogen energy vehicles, Toyota has not gambled well.
In 2014, Toyota released the mirai, the world's first mass-produced fuel cell vehicle. In December 2020, the second-generation Mirai will strike again, and Toyota hopes to build it as a "luxury car that customers really love", and even the starting point for the large-scale popularization of hydrogen technology. However, fuel cell technology is "difficult to quench the thirst of distant water" and does not yet have the conditions for large-scale commercial use.
In contrast, pure electric vehicles have developed power battery products with power exchange modes and long endurance, which solves the problem of short battery life and slow charging of lithium batteries.
"It's not too late for Toyota to enter the electrification transition, but its route is conservative and oscillates between the three technical routes of hybrid, pure electricity and hydrogen energy."
A message in a forum also highlighted the "thing is not human": only a few years ago, more than half of the taxis on China's streets were still hung with the "TOYOTA" logo, and today, BYD's pure electric vehicles have completely replaced it.
In 2017, Akio Toyoda publicly admitted that Toyota has shortcomings in electric vehicles. "We're already a bit late for electric cars".
In 2019, Akio Toyoda personally took command and set up a new department within Toyota, focusing on the research and development of new energy vehicles. In addition, Toyota is also actively looking for allies. In April 2020, Toyota Motor and BYD jointly established a joint venture to jointly promote the development of the company's electric vehicles.
"It's not just a simple victory or defeat, a life-or-death battle has begun." When the electric vehicle division was established, Akio Toyoda sighed.
Nowadays, the catch-up of a large hand is a "dead sheep to make up for the prison".
However, the market has little time left for Toyota, especially in the Chinese market where its key layout is located, new forces such as Tesla and Weilai have initially gained a foothold, traditional giants such as Lantu and Zhiji continue to increase their weight, and crossovers such as Xiaomi and Baidu are also eager to try...
In the torrent of the times, can the "conservative" Toyota catch up with the latecomers?