Toyota is the only global manufacturer to sell more than 10 million vehicles worldwide in 2021, what is the current direction of Toyota? I think it's moving from the U.S. to China and increasing investment in electric vehicles for that. But Toyota as a whole still emphasizes the efficiency of hybrid vehicles.
So in this article, we carefully study and analyze Toyota!
[1] Toyota's total sales exceed volkswagen
In 2021, the collapse of the supply chain, which began with the imbalance between supply and demand of semiconductors, is the most important factor hindering the expansion of the automotive industry. However, Toyota motor sold 10,495,548 units, an increase of 10.1%, and was the only manufacturer to sell more than 10 million units. Toyota exceeded the 10 million mark for the third time, after 10.742 million units in 2019 and 10.594 million units in 2018. Volkswagen also surpassed 10 million units in 2017, 2018 and 2019, but fell 4.5% to 8.882 million units in 2021.
By brand, Toyota has 8.85 million vehicles and Volkswagen has 4.897 million vehicles.
On the other hand, in terms of pure electric vehicles, Volkswagen sold 453,000 units, while Toyota sold only 14,407 units. Of course, if we include hybrids in the new energy category, Toyota has 2.621 million units (hybrid vehicles increased by 30% to 2.482 million units). Volkswagen electric + 359,500 plug-in hybrid vehicles total only about 810,000 units.
[2] Toyota is strong in the United States and weak in China. Volkswagen China is strong, the United States is weak
There are also clear differences between the two brands. In the U.S. market, Toyota surpassed GM for the first time with 233,2261 units, topping the list. Volkswagen ranked 8th with 647,403 units. In Europe, Volkswagen ranked second with 3,160,839 units, while Toyota ranked eighth with 841,846 units.
In the Chinese market, Volkswagen is still far ahead. Volkswagen Group's sales in China in 2021 decreased by 14.1% to 3,304,800 units. This compares to Toyota's 8.2% increase to 1,944,000 units. However, Toyota hit a record high for the ninth consecutive year, with hybrid vehicles leading the growth. Hybrid vehicle sales increased 25% to 475,900 units. This is a 17% increase compared to 2019 and will continue to rise in 2020.
Japanese manufacturers have not yet reached the level where Volkswagen and GM are more than 40% dependent on the Chinese market, but they are entering a new phase with a total share of the Chinese market of more than 25%.
[3] Toyota is shifting its main stage to China by accelerating the development of electric vehicles
At the end of 2019, Toyota split its China and Asia headquarters into China headquarters and Asian headquarters. The separation of Toyota's China business was driven by continued sales growth in the Chinese market. Toyota has announced plans to increase production capacity in China to 2 million units by 2020. It also includes the launch of 10 pure electric vehicles by 2025.
This is evidence that Toyota is shifting the main stage from the United States to China. Toyota announced its electric vehicle strategy in January 2019 and revised it in June six months later. And in 2021, Toyota once again revised its electric vehicle strategy.
While the basic strategy of carbon neutrality and energy diversification remains unchanged, the focus is on increasing the proportion of pure electric vehicles from 2 million to 3.5 million by 2030, and Lexus will shift to pure electric vehicle brands by 2035. This is a reaction to the global players' comprehensive expansion of the battery electric vehicle lineup. Especially considering that 85% of global electric vehicle sales are concentrated in China and Europe.
Of course, the idea of achieving carbon neutrality through various electrification lineups such as hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, and fuel cell electric vehicles has not changed, basically according to the energy situation in various regions of the world and the needs of different customers. However, the proportion of pure electric vehicles has further increased. To this end, investment in pure electric vehicles has also increased to 4 trillion yen.
[4] Toyota's pure electric vehicle development plan
Toyota has released details of the new battery electric vehicle bZ4X for October 2021. The Mid-size vehicle, which is equivalent to the Toyota RAV4 SUV, is scheduled to be launched in 2022 in Japan, the United States, Europe, and China. The bZ4X features Subaru's AWD technology, which features a four-wheel drive system, on a dedicated platform based on the Toyota e-TNGA architecture. Produced in Japan and China.
Of particular note is that it is preparing a complete lineup of bZ(Beyond Zero)-based sedans, crossovers, SUVs, large SUVs, pickups, delivery vans and e-Palletes. Three core technologies that support the full range of electric vehicles: electric motors, batteries and power control units.
As far as the European subsidiary is concerned, in early December last year, Toyota announced a goal of selling only zero-emission vehicles by 2035 and announced the development of an E3 platform for battery electric vehicles to accelerate the move towards the era of electric vehicles. Exclusively for the European market.
In addition, the goal is to reduce the cost per battery by 50% in the late 2020s by reducing costs by more than 30% and increasing fuel efficiency by more than 30% to reduce the cost per battery by 50% in the late 2020s for the adoption of electric vehicles. Battery development and supply costs will be below 50% by 2030, assuming a capacity of 200 GWh, exceeding the existing target of 180 GWh.
This coincides with Toyota's recent rise in the Chinese market. Considering that the growth of the Chinese market is a source of global growth, it is investing more aggressively in China, the largest market for electric vehicles.
[5] Toyota pursues battery self-sufficiency
At the same time, Toyota Motor Corporation is accelerating the path to battery internalization. Toyota motor announced in October 2021 that it will build a new battery production plant in the United States to accelerate electrification to achieve carbon neutrality. As a first step toward investing $3.4 billion to promote local production of automotive batteries, Toyota's North American subsidiary and Toyota Trade have formed a new company in the United States, which is scheduled to begin operations in 2025.
Toyota and Panasonic founded Prime Earth EV Energy in 1996, a company that makes batteries for hybrid electric vehicles. In 2020, Panasonic and Prime Planet Energy and Solutions, which are responsible for the production and development of in-vehicle batteries, went public. This is the third joint venture with Toyota Trading Co., with Toyota 90% and Toyota Trading 10%.
In terms of car batteries, from the perspective of quality assurance such as safety, Toyota emphasizes internal production rather than external procurement. Of course, this can also be understood to consider that the key to competitiveness in the era of electric vehicles is the battery.
In China, we will adopt a localization strategy to deepen cooperation with battery giants such as NINGDE Times and BYD. The strategy, on the other hand, is to go directly into the United States for development and production.
[6] Independent research and development of important core technologies
Toyota has long been conducting research in the battery and semiconductor industries. Batteries and semiconductors, which play an important role in next-generation vehicles such as electric vehicles, are typical examples, with large-scale initial investments in high-performance equipment that generate investments and returns in operations.
The world's major automakers have announced a series of battery investments, but few have their own factories. Most of them take the form of joint ventures with battery manufacturers. Toyota, on the other hand, is pursuing its own development and production, aiming to cut battery costs in half through integrated development with vehicles.
Toyota's goal is to use expensive materials such as rare earth cobalt or nickel without the use of rare earth cobalt or nickel in the battery development process. In addition, it plans to extend the service life of the product and work to develop a structure that is easy to install on the body.
However, the release date of an all-solid-state battery electric vehicle using next-generation batteries seems unlikely to meet previous goals for the early 2020s. Recently, most of the public opinion has focused on the difficulty of commercialization of all-solid-state batteries, or there is an atmosphere of postponement to 2030.
[7] While developing pure electric power, it will still not give up hybrid power
Toyota stressed that the CO2 reduction effect of three hybrid vehicles is almost equivalent to that of a pure electric vehicle. Currently, since hybrid vehicles can be offered at lower prices, electrification of hybrid vehicles is one of the effective ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in areas where renewable energy is scarce. In areas rich in renewable energy, he emphasized that zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) such as pure electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles can effectively reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Toyota's cumulative sales of hybrid vehicles reached 18.1 million units. This equates to a reduction in CO2 emissions equivalent to 5.5 million electric vehicles.
In 2019, Volkswagen launched the MEB platform, in 2020, GM launched the Ultium platform, and Hyundai Motor Group launched the e-GMP platform. But in comparison, Toyota's response to the pure electric vehicle platform is somewhat slow. But for the future development of the enterprise, which is better, there is still no answer.