The end of combustion engines? Toyota announces drastic change in the automotive industry and plans to focus only on hybrid engines until the next decade, check out the details!
Toyota, the Japanese auto giant, could become the first automaker to have cars with only combustion engines in its portfolio. This is what two company executives told Reuters, without disclosing their identities. According to the report, the brand is preparing to have a Toyota and Lexus portfolio 100% focused on hybrid models in the automotive industry. Could this be the beginning of the end for combustion engines?
Understand why Toyota declared the end of combustion engines
As policies to reduce carbon emissions in the United States would be factors that leveraged the decision of the automotive industry giant, according to sources heard by the international agency. This is because Toyota spends billions of resources on paying fines and regulatory costs.
A green portfolio, therefore, would help the brand comply with the rules set by the US government. In a few years, new pollutant emission standards will come into force in the country, that is, from 2027. Thus, another reason for the assembler Japanese to quickly adapt to combustion engine legislation.
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Another factor for this change in the automotive industry would be the reduction in market demand for electric models. According to recent research, there is a depreciation of battery-powered models in the US. In a list that showed the 15 most depreciated cars in the last 12 months, six of them are electric. The Tesla Model 3 tops the list published by the website iSeeCars.
However, Toyota plans to convert about 30% of its global fleet to electric vehicles by the beginning of the next decade, according to Reuters. The Japanese brand would focus on its best-selling models concentrated in a small number.
Is Toyota behind on decarbonization?
The sources added that there is a strong chance that combustion engine vehicles will become plug-in hybrids, with a larger battery. Toyota's North American sales and marketing chief David Christ said the brand will look at each case on a case-by-case basis. According to the executive, in the future, the brand plans to evaluate on a line-by-line basis whether it makes sense to adopt a fully hybrid model.
Toyota is the traditional car manufacturer that is furthest behind in the process of electrifying its cars. However, this is planned and the company has not bet everything on electric cars at any point and remains firm and strong in its strategy of hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell cars. In this way, the brand was one of the only companies that did not have to backtrack on its plans after the drop in sales of fully electric vehicles.
Almost 30 years after the launch of the Prius, its first hybrid car, the brand is preparing to transform a large part of its fleet of cars, or perhaps all of them, Toyota and Lexus in hybrid models.
What will happen to the Brazilian automotive industry with the end of combustion engines??
In Brazil, Toyota has been selling hybrid cars for over a decade, since the arrival of the Prius in 2013. Since then, a lot has changed and the company seems increasingly focused on electrifying part of its fleet. Since 2019, the automaker nationalized the production of its hybrid-flex models (the first in the world), with the Corolla and soon after the Corolla Cross.
The strategy worked so well that Toyota announced a billion-dollar investment in the automotive industry to nationalize the production of its hybrid system. The investment of more than R$11 billion announced by the company in Brazil last year has as its main objective the national production of a flex-fuel plug-in hybrid set, with national engines and batteries.