No one expected that Toyota, which has always been known for its "conservative and stable", would bring 15 new cars in one go at a press conference, and it was still charged. I still remember the last time I saw this scene, it was in the Evergrande booth of the Shanghai Auto Show, but compared with the young Evergrande Automobile, the impact of the "battle-hardened" Toyota was undoubtedly much greater.
An unprecedented press conference
There is no doubt that this is an unprecedented conference, just by seeing 15 different electric vehicles in front of you, you can also see Toyota's determination to enter the electric vehicle market.
From the specific display of models, these dozen pure trams cover a variety of model product lines, including not only 11 large-scale models, but also pickup trucks, off-road vehicles and a Lexus sports car.
Toyota motor is planned to invest 8 trillion yen ($35 billion) in research and development costs on new energy vehicles including electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles, half of which will be used for pure electric research. By 2030, Toyota will sell 75 percent of new energy vehicles and strive to sell 3.5 million units a year. At the same time, Toyota Group Chairman Akio Toyoda also said that by 2030, Toyota and Lexus brands will bring 30 pure electric vehicle models, while the Lexus brand will stop selling fuel vehicles by 2035.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to the electrification strategy and sales targets, the Toyota Group has also increased its investment in battery technology by 2,000 billion yen (111.8 billion yuan) from the original 500 billion yen (about 27.95 billion yuan). All indications are that Toyota is really here this time.
Got up early in the morning and rushed to the late set
In fact, among the many car companies, Toyota is the first batch of "electrocution".
Toyota's Prius, can be said to be the originator of the hybrid field, from the listing to today has passed more than twenty years, and with this car Toyota in the field of hybrid evaluation is also particularly high. Despite occupying a leading position in the field of hybrids, Toyota has not further developed in "electrification", but prefers hydrogen energy vehicles.
So after betting on hydrogen energy, Toyota has invested a lot of resources in this, and its hydrogen fuel vehicle Mirai has come out of the second generation. However, due to the very few car companies playing, as well as the reasons for cost control, Toyota's fuel cell vehicles have never been able to open the market. According to the data, since the launch of the first fuel cell vehicle Mirai in 2014, the cumulative sales volume has only been about 10,000 vehicles, and the main markets are still distributed in Japan, the United States and Europe.
The hydrogen fuel vehicle market is not easy to open, and electrification is the trend of the times, so even if Akio Toyoda has attacked electric vehicles more than once, he still can't escape the fate of developing electric vehicles. It is only Toyota, which has been laying out in the field of new energy for a long time, that it seems to be half a beat slower because it chose the wrong road.
Desperate Toyota
All indications are that the trend of electrification has long been unstoppable, and Toyota's "compromise" is now reasonable. Especially under the continuous promotion of policies, the development of the electric vehicle market is very rapid. Taking the domestic car market as an example, from January to November this year, the cumulative sales volume of the new energy passenger car market reached 2.514 million units, an increase of 178.3% year-on-year.
The greater the sales potential of the market, the faster the development of new energy vehicle companies. Look at today's Tesla, has grown into a traditional car company or new energy vehicle companies to be afraid of the object, after all, Tesla's sales in front of the fuel car is not inferior, especially its stock price has soared, and now has become the world's highest market value of the car company, its market value is more than the market value of the first few car companies combined, which shows that the capital market is optimistic about electric vehicles.
In addition, traditional car giants such as Volkswagen have also opened the delivery of the ID family, but although Toyota has its own e-TNGA pure electric exclusive platform, it should be noted that this platform has not yet mass-produced a model. Seeing that the opponents have achieved mass production deliveries, can Toyota, which is still spinning in place, not be in a hurry?
Write at the end
As we all know, Toyota has always been a relatively conservative car company. But in the face of policy trends, consumer demand and increasing acceptance, the implementation of pure electric routes has a greater inevitability, after all, this market is indeed too big, and if you do not grasp the wind direction, it will only be pushed farther and farther. Toyota, which launched 15 electric vehicles at a time, is obviously really in a hurry.
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