Toyota has always been “frigid” about electric vehicle development, but the future may hold some surprises. The Japanese giant has historically focused on optimizing the hybrid system, in which it was a true pioneer, but now, with new CEO Koji Sato, it will focus on electricity and do so by accelerating innovation, primarily trying to address one of the biggest challenges of modern battery-powered vehicles: autonomy.
New solid-state batteries could extend an electric vehicle’s range to more than 1,000 km. In addition to this, production and logistics methods are being studied, which should lead to cost containment. An electric car with a good range, fast charging, and low cost is a kind of “Holy Grail” of the industry. Toyota aims to make this leap and produce more than 3 million electric vehicles by 2030. 2026 is the year when a new generation of lithium-ion batteries with long life and fast recharge will be released – this is the first step of Toyota’s attack on Tesla.