Every company, whether it makes gadgets, home entertainment or software, wants its own technology to win. But it also has to go where the market is going. I’d say this is even more difficult in the automotive world today as global regulations push auto companies toward a zero-emissions future.
The world’s largest automaker by production and sales volume, Toyota, gets this too. And even though the company is lagging behind in pure electric vehicles, its success with hybrids means it is plotting the end of pure internal combustion.
Toyotas Chief scientist admitted the company is discussing the end date for its non-electrified cars in America, he told Bloomberg this week.
“A decision is now being made in the US – and I am not part of it – whether we will stop making pure ICE for the US market,” Gill Pratt, Toyota’s chief scientist, told the newspaper in an interview . . “Just the fact that we’re thinking about that means it must be close.”
That may come as a surprise to anyone passionate about Toyota’s (admittedly very good) combustion engines, such as the noisy little three-cylinder in the GR Corolla or the almost last-of-its-kind naturally aspirated 5.0-liter V8 in the Lexus IS 500 F Sport. But if you look at Toyota’s sales, you might realize that this is the way things have been going for a while.
Toyota’s track record in electric cars hasn’t been great. The three electric models in the US (if we also count the related Subaru Solterra) are significantly outclassed in range, charging time and overall technology by competitors from the US, South Korea and Europe – not to mention the leading Chinese automakers . the road.
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But those electric models still sell quite well, especially Toyota’s hybrid models. Toyota pioneered hybrid technology and now has the widest range of electrified cars of any automaker. In September, nearly half of U.S. sales were electric vehicles or hybrids. It’s moved the ubiquitous Camry to a full hybrid setup, meaning one of the few four-door sedans still sold in any meaningful volume in America is now an electrified car.
For Toyota, that is the future. Not purely ICE vehicles. Company officials have sometimes hinted that the ultimate plan is an all-hybrid or electric future in America, but this is one of the clearest admissions yet about where things are going.
Pratt has been with Toyota for almost a decade and is also CEO of the Toyota Research Institute. Previously, he held leadership positions at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and MIT. All this is to say that he is a smart guy and he knows what he is talking about when he talks about climate issues. In there Bloomberg In an interview he admits that he is ‘deeply depressed’ by the growing amount of CO2 emissions caused by human activities. “If you’re not afraid of this curve, you’re not seeing it right,” he said.
At the same time, Pratt has been an outspoken proponent of Toyota’s own skeptical approach to pure electrification as the future of cars. The automaker has instead advocated a ‘multi-pathway’ approach with many different car powertrains depending on customer needs, whether hybrids, hydrogen vehicles or pure EVs. (It’s also worth noting that every company wants its technology to win. And two of those three things are driven by Toyota itself.)
There are two ways to look at that approach. The most crucial one is that hydrogen energy for passenger cars has not really taken off yet and hybrid vehicles, while much cleaner and more economical than pure ICE cars, still generate carbon emissions, unlike electric vehicles. But the other, perhaps more pragmatic way to look at it is that anything that takes pure ICE off the road is progress, and it’s easier to get people into hybrids – for now anyway – than to turn the entire market into a completely to give it a new look. electrical direction. Just last week, Toyota said it would join other automakers in cutting EV production in the U.S. amid concerns about uneven demand.
“What I try to emphasize now in my speeches is: please, please, please, we all want the same thing, but let’s stop the wishful thinking,” Pratt said in that interview. “Let’s think about what’s really going to happen, what human nature is like, what politics is like, the capital that people don’t need to change cars, and let’s find a way that accepts the reality of all those things, and let’s change what we can actually change.”
But I’d say that whatever you want to think about the evolution of automotive technology, it’s a really big deal that the world’s largest automaker is admitting that pure ICE has a specific end date. In the near future, every Toyota on sale in the US could be a hybrid, an EV, or perhaps a hydrogen car. And that speaks volumes about where everything is going.
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