“Difficult” to Meet California Zero-Emission Requirements: Toyota President

Akio Toyoda, Toyota Motor President, has termed the achievement of California’s new zero-emission requirements (to put an end to sales of new gasoline-only vehicles by year 2035), as “difficult” to meet.

“Realistically speaking, it seems rather difficult to really achieve them,” Toyoda stated through a translator at a roundtable interaction with reporters.

Toyota’s EV Plans

Toyoda, who has been leading the automotive giant since 2009, spoke in support of Toyota’s strategy and electric vehicle development plans, which have been on the receiving by some environmental groups and investors that want it to embrace battery electric vehicles. Responding to this, he said, “But just like the fully autonomous cars that we were all supposed to be driving by now, BEVs are just going to take longer to become mainstream than the media would like us to believe.”

There is mounting pressure on automakers from regulators to sell more zero-emission vehicles.

In August, Toyota revealed that it would augment its planned investment in a new U.S. battery plant from $1.29 billion to $3.8 billion. The company was responding to the increasing consumer demand for EVs. Recently, Toyota, which is the bestselling auto brand in California, recognized the state’s authority to adhere to vehicle emissions standards as under the U.S. Clean Air Act.

Comparing Toyota to a “department store” that sells diverse vehicles to customers that have different needs, Toyoda spoke about the challenges to EV adoption, such as impacts on the electrical grid and the absence of easy access to electricity by about 1 billion people worldwide.

Toyota dealer with operations in Kentucky and Indiana, Steve Gates shared, “You can’t make a living just selling EVs.”

In 2021, Toyota set aside nearly $30 billion in order to make battery electric vehicles. It anticipates that the automaker’s yearly sales of such cars will touch just 3.5 million vehicles by the end of the decade. This figure is about one-third of its present yearly sales of gasoline-powered cars.

Toyota’s Triumphs 

Notably, the Japanese brand has been praised by the Biden administration for its EV investment plans following its conflict with the White House about a scrapped administration EV tax credit proposal that would have brought benefits for unionized automakers.

The US President is looking at 50% of new vehicles by 2030 to be EVs or plug-in hybrid EVs, however, he has not stipulated a date for putting an end to gasoline-vehicle sales.

A day before he addressed the press, Toyoda has told dealers that he celebrated after Toyota displaced General Motors last year as the bestselling automaker in the US.

“I actually did a little ‘happy dance’ in my office,” Toyoda admitted. “Thankfully nobody saw it!”