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Toyota will finally launch its first all-electric mainstream vehicles in the United States later this year, the world’s largest automaker said on Wednesday, but did not provide more details on vehicle type or pricing.
Toyota has previously said it is developing an electric SUV on a new flexible platform that can power multiple electric vehicles, following in the footsteps of Volkswagen, General Motors and others. The two new electric vehicles will be announced alongside an unspecified Toyota hybrid.
“We continue to be leaders in electrification, which began with the introduction of the Prius almost 25 years ago,” said Bob Carter, executive vice president of sales for Toyota America. North, in a press release. “Toyota’s new electrified product offerings will provide customers with several choices of powertrain that best meet their needs.”
Toyota has helped pioneer and popularize hybrid vehicles, which rely on electric motors to reduce emissions and increase fuel economy. But unlike most other major automakers, it has resisted investing in fully electric vehicles outside of China. Only one all-electric vehicle has ever been sold in the United States: the Rav4 EV. It existed in a few different forms, although Toyota never made and sold more than a few thousand.
In its announcement, Toyota touted the success of its hybrid models, but it again relied on a shaky argument as to why it has resisted all-electric vehicles. The company claims to have conducted internal research which found that the total greenhouse gas emissions from all-electric and hybrid vehicles were “about the same … taking into account the pollutants created by power generation for the average US energy grid used to charge batteries. ”
It’s a questionable idea taken at face value, but this argument crucially ignores the fact that all-electric vehicles only get cleaner because renewables make up a bigger part of the grid.
Yet this is a popular line of thinking at Toyota; The company’s billionaire CEO Akio Toyoda said in December that he believed electric vehicles were overrated in part because of emissions from power plants – a statement that must have sounded music to the ears of the oil industry because it’s one of his favorite fake news.
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