| Lei
The attitude of Japanese cars to electrification has always been painless. Due to Japan's geographical environment, policies and other reasons, the current pace of pure electric development of Japanese cars is not fast. But to be honest, if you don't develop, you won't develop, concentrate on doing a good job of your fuel vehicles, oil and electricity mix, who will have something to say about you.
But there is a car company, its CEO every day in various public occasions "diss" pure electric, one moment said that "electric vehicles are over-hyped", the next time said that "electric vehicles will cause the loss of millions of jobs." But behind the scenes, it is busy spending tens of billions of dollars to invest in power batteries, and recently, there is also news that a high-end brand of its will transform into pure electric.
This car company is Toyota.
On December 14, Toyota said at its electric vehicle strategy conference that its high-end brand Lexus will launch pure electric models by 2030; at that time, it will only sell pure electric vehicles in China, Europe and North America, and will achieve this goal globally in 2035. This means that Lexus, which was once a selling point for hybrids, is likely to become a pure electric brand in the future.
Hydrogen cars are not bought
In fact, Japanese cars represented by Toyota are not inactive in the field of new energy. In addition to their own deeply cultivated hybrid technology for many years, they are more inclined to the development of hydrogen energy vehicles than pure electric.
However, the current hydrogen energy vehicles have problems such as high energy density, difficult conversion and high manufacturing costs. For example, hydrogen must be converted into a liquid state to be loaded into a hydrogen storage tank and applied in cars; for example, the current price of one kilogram of hydrogen in China is about 80 yuan, and a hydrogen car with an endurance of 600 kilometers needs about 5.5 kilograms of hydrogen to fill up at a time, and the cost is nearly 450 yuan. Flush with fuel vehicles, it is even higher than the cost of fuel for fuel vehicles.
In terms of cost, the current price of household hydrogen models sold on the market is generally more than 300,000 or even 400,000, and even some imported models will be more expensive.
Therefore, although car companies such as Toyota have invested a lot of money in the development of hydrogen energy vehicles, they have achieved little effect at present, and even some hydrogen energy models are facing the danger of discontinuation.
Hybridization has been marginalized
Even if it does not engage in pure electric and hydrogen energy, Toyota at least has its own "old base" - hybrid technology. However, at present, the independent brands represented by BYD have risen rapidly in the field of hybridization, and Toyota's hybrid advantages have ceased to exist.
In terms of hybrid vehicle sales, for example, in September this year, BYD DM hybrid model became the first hybrid model in China's history to sell more than 30,000 brands for two consecutive months. BYD Song, Qin and Tang equipped with DM-i super hybrid technology have fully overtaken Corolla and Ralink, and successfully regained the position of the champion in sales of hybrid compact cars and compact SUVs from Toyota. The situation in which Toyota hybrid market is dominant has been completely rewritten.
Now, even Toyota itself is cooperating with BYD in the development of hybrid technology and related models.
Do you like to develop while scolding?
Toyota's "schizophrenia" probably comes from two aspects: on the one hand, inferiority, on the other hand, conceit.
The field of hybridization has been completely surpassed by BYD hybrid, and the electric technology has been wrongly bet, resulting in no deeper accumulation so far; in the "era of software-defined cars", driverless technology is even more blank; Toyota's surface scenery is essentially not far away.
However, as an old car company with unlimited wind pipes, Toyota has always been reluctant to concede defeat. Akio Toyoda probably wants to shake the determination of consumers to buy cars or other car companies to develop pure electric vehicles through this "mouth out of the mouth" method.
Write at the end
In the field of pure electricity, Toyota has lagged behind. In the long run, Toyota may become the next Nokia phone. So Toyota is really anxious and has been opposed to electrification. It can be said that Toyota is engaged in electric vehicles, unwilling and unwilling. But in China, the largest auto market, pure electric vehicles are the mainstream of new energy. This is a historical trend, a trend of the times, and Toyota cannot change it.