RELATED PRESS
The FT-Se sports car is on display in the gloom before Toyota Motor Corp. CEO Koji Sato speaks at a press conference at the Japan Mobility Show in Tokyo on Wednesday.
TOKYO>> “We love battery-powered vehicles. “
Takero Kato, Toyota’s head of electric vehicles, said this once, twice, to underscore what he sees as the message of this year’s Tokyo Motor Show.
That’s a clear message at the Tokyo Mobility Show, which runs until November 5 at Tokyo Big Sight Hall and where battery-powered electric vehicles are the star of the show at virtually every booth.
Mazda Motor Corp. unveils a sports car concept that is a plug-in electric vehicle with its iconic rotary engine. Honda Motor Co. unveils its Prelude EV sports car concept. Toyota Motor Corp. ‘s Lexus angular concept, slated to air on sale in 2026, is an electric vehicle powered by lithium-ion batteries.
Reporters got a glimpse on Wednesday ahead of the program’s public opening on Saturday.
U. S. automakers such as General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. exhibit at the exhibition and have participated in it for several years. Americans account for only a small fraction of Japanese car sales and have struggled to penetrate a market where domestic automakers remain strong.
Foreign automakers include Mercedes-Benz, a perennial Japanese favorite, and China’s BYD.
Kato denied repeating his comments because he fears Toyota will be perceived as loving electric vehicles enough.
Toyota executives said Japan’s largest automaker lagged behind rivals in developing electric vehicles, such as Tesla of the United States and BYD Auto of China. This is partly due to Toyota’s enormous luck in the hybrid sector, exemplified by the Prius, which has a gasoline engine in addition to an electric motor.
Toyota already sells a small two-seater called the C pod and bZ4X, co-developed with Subaru, as electric offerings, but not much else. And he’s eager to catch up.
As Toyota’s first serious electric vehicle, the Lexus LF-ZC will serve as a showcase of how Toyota is doing in an industry that is still a minority of the global market but is developing rapidly, given priorities such as climate change.
In Japan, electric cars account for less than 5% of the car market, according to the International Energy Agency. In the U. S. , where Tesla dominates, electric cars account for just 10% of car sales, even as President Joe Biden pushes for at least 5% of the auto market to be reached. At least 54% of new cars sold in the U. S. will be electric by 2030. In China, one-third of new cars sold in the U. S. are electric.
Global Tesla car deliveries last year rose 40% year-over-year to 1. 31 million electric cars. BYD has sold more than 1. 85 million plug-in electric cars.
Meanwhile, Toyota sold fewer than 25,000 electric vehicles globally last year; in the first eight months of this year it sold 65,000, mostly in Japan. Toyota is targeting sales of 1. 5 million electric cars by 2026 and 3. 5 million by 2030.
“We envision a long-term electrified that we hope to build with our customers,” Kato said.
Catching up is challenging but impossible, said Joshua Cobb, senior automotive analyst at BMI.
“In the short term, we expect Chinese electric cars from brands such as BYD, SAIC-GM-Wuling and Tesla-branded electric cars to continue to gain market share as there is little festival at the moment,” he said.
But Cobb added: “One thing that can’t be underestimated is the strong loyalty to the logo in Japan. He said Japanese consumers would likely delay their purchases of electric vehicles until more domestic models hit the market.
Nissan, one of Japan’s leading vehicle brands with its Leaf unveiled in 2010, is unveiling four concept cars.
Among them is the Hyper Tourer minivan concept that Nissan says has complex technologies such as autonomous driving. It is powered by solid-state batteries with maximum power density.
Senior Vice President Alfonso Albaisa said Nissan is focusing on virtual reality and other advancements that allow vehicle designers to design time progression.
“At Nissan, we have accelerated our radical virtual transition, as have other industries, such as gaming,” Albaisa said.
Automakers also point out that the generation of electric vehicles is leading to adjustments in the way a vehicle is driven.
The batteries and motor of an electric vehicle take up less space than a combustion engine. This means that EVs can have a lower center of gravity while still offering more cabin space, making them an ingenious powertrain for sports cars, vans, and vans. and SUVs.
At Nissan and elsewhere, a key factor for electric cars is battery charging time and range. While all the major automakers in the world take advantage of the charging time and extend the cruising time according to the charge, the American startup Ample has come up with another solution: the battery. Exchanging.
Instead of charging the battery in the car, the module containing the battery is removed and replaced with a fully charged battery in a drive-in movie theater specially built for this procedure. The operation, performed by robots, takes only five minutes.
This is already being used by Uber drivers in the San Francisco area. Ample’s battery-swapping formula will arrive in Japan this winter through a partnership with Mitsubishi Fuso, a Daimler Group trucking company. The exchange will be on display at the Mitsubishi Fuso booth.
De Souza said another attraction of battery swapping is its friendliness to the environment. A battery can be flexibly charged with renewable energy at times of the day when energy demand is low, he explained.
“We made the decision that what worked well with the fuel was prevention for a few minutes,” said John de Souza, president and founder of Ample.
Have comments? Learn more here.
Click here for our full information on the coronavirus outbreak. Submit your coronavirus news.
Back to top