AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)04/25 Report--

Toyota officially launched a new system on April 1, with Akio Toyoda stepping down as president (CEO) and replaced by Toyota's chief brand officer and head of the Lexus brand, Eiji Sato, whose theme can be understood as "accelerating the electrification transformation."

As the head brand of Chinese automobile joint venture brand, Toyota used to rely on fuel vehicles to seize a certain market share in the domestic market, but Toyota has little sense of existence in the electric vehicle market. Data show that Toyota's cumulative sales in China fell 0.2% year-on-year to 1.9406 million vehicles in 2022, the first year-on-year decline in Toyota in a decade. It is widely believed in the industry that Toyota's "electrification" has been stagnant. The slow layout of pure electric vehicles is one of the reasons why Toyota's sales are under pressure.

Or to reverse the decline in sales, the 53-year-old Sato has frequently appeared in the public eye since taking over the post of Toyota's new president, mostly on new energy vehicles.

Toyota President Henoji Sato said there was a "sense of crisis" around its business in China and would strengthen the local electric vehicle supply chain, the Financial Times reported on April 24. Not long ago, Mr. Sato said in an interview with the media that Toyota admitted that it had failed in the development of pure electric vehicles and found a lot of problems in practice. Toyota plans to start building a self-cycling R & D system in China this year. In the domestic market, Toyota has two joint ventures, FAW Toyota and Guangzhou Auto Toyota. According to Toyota's above plan, it means that Toyota's products will be jointly developed and produced by FAW Toyota and Guangzhou Automobile Toyota in the future. Toyota is also likely to export products developed in China to other major markets.

In response to the electrification target, Mr Sato said Toyota promised to reduce carbon dioxide emissions per new car worldwide by more than 50 per cent from 2019 levels by 2035. Later, in an interview with the media, Mr. Sato said he had a strong determination to this goal. But it said bluntly: "from the perspective of energy security, we will not shift the focus to pure electric vehicles in one fell swoop, but maintain an 'omni-directional strategy' that provides hybrid vehicles (HV), fuel cell vehicles (FCV) and other options depending on the characteristics of various countries and regions."

In a group interview on April 21, Mr. Sato promised "bold" efforts to promote further localization as Toyota struggles to keep up with the rapid pace of technological change in the world's largest car market. "I do have a sense of potential crisis and we need to accelerate our efforts to do business in this market," says Mr Sato. "

Up to now, Toyota has laid out two pure electric models in the Chinese market, namely the bZ4X and the bZ3. The bZ4X, which was launched in October last year, is Toyota's first model based on the e-TNGA architecture, positioning the medium-sized pure electric SUV and undertaking the important task of Toyota's transformation to electrification, which is jointly produced and sold by GAC Toyota and FAW Toyota. BZ3 is Toyota's second bZ series model, officially launched on April 16, the new car launched a total of three models, the selling price range of 169800-199800 yuan, different from the bZ4X model, the car is only produced and sold by FAW Toyota, while Guangzhou Auto Toyota does not participate in production.

According to the retail data of CAC, from January to March in 2023, GAC-Toyota sold 767,500,462 bZ4X respectively, with a cumulative sales of 1729; FAW-Toyota bZ4X sales were 287,1049 and 1729, respectively, with a cumulative sales of 3065. The combined sales of the two vehicles are less than 5000, which lags far behind Volkswagen's pure electricity sales in China.

According to the plan, Toyota will launch 10 new pure electric models by 2026 and set up a new department to focus on the research, development and production of pure electric models, when the global annual sales will reach 1.5 million vehicles. As for short-term goals, as one of Toyota's most important markets, Toyota plans to launch two pure electric vehicles developed in China in 2024.

"Toyota's electrification development approach is omni-directional, including HEV, PHEV, BEV and FCEV," said Takashi Ueda, executive servant of Toyota, China minister, chairman and general manager of Toyota China. This goal and concept will not change. But we also see that Chinese consumers have a stronger preference for BEV than other parts of the world, so Toyota's efforts to develop pure electric vehicles in China will be stronger and stronger than in other regions in the future. " Mr. Sato has previously stressed that Toyota will promote the shift from gasoline-powered vehicles to hybrid, electric and other vehicles. However, it is widely believed in the industry that Toyota is currently in a difficult stage of transition and that major reforms are unlikely in the future.

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