Toyota Is Taking the Long Road to EV Success
As Tesla and BYD barrel ahead, the Japanese carmaker is navigating the “pioneer’s trap.”
Taking the long road to success.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
To get an idea of how Toyota Motor Corp. views the electric vehicle business just take a look at how it reports car sales. Prominent in its breakdown is the category of electrified vehicles, which is then divided into sub-categories: hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electric vehicles and fuel-cell models.
For most EV makers, battery-electric is the only one that matters. Tesla Inc., for example, exclusively ships BEVs. In its view, and for many acolytes, a vehicle must have a battery and be exclusively charged from an external electricity source to earn that “E” prefix. Its nearest rival, BYD Co., exited the combustion-engine car market in 2022 and last year produced a roughly even split between battery and hybrid passenger cars.