Toyota Motor Corp.’s lineup over the next 30 years will contain a myriad of options beyond just electric vehicles, executives at an annual shareholder meeting said Wednesday.“It’s too early to concentrate on one option,” said director Shigeki Terashi, responding to an investor’s question about why the world’s biggest carmaker is taking a different electrification route than Honda Motor Co. which is targeting all electric vehicle sales by 2040.
Compared with a number of auto majors including General Motors Co. that aim to exclusively offer EVs in two deades’ time, Toyota is sticking firmly to its stance that non-electric cars will also play a lasting role in global auto markets.
“Some people love battery-electric vehicles but others don’t see the current technologies as convenient,” Toyota’s Chief Technology Officer Masahiko Maeda said. “In the end what matters is what customers choose.”
When looking at reducing carbon emissions, there’s one school of thought that says we should focus on battery-electric vehicles, Terashi said. Including production, use and scrapping-related emissions, “we’re choosing to look at the whole lifecycle.”