AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/11 Report--

On May 10th, in response to the news that "Toyota's joint venture in China will launch a model with BYD DM-i super hybrid technology", the media service center of Tian Automobile (China) Investment Co., Ltd. issued an article: "there is no definitive official information at present."

Toyota said that Toyota maintains an open attitude in technical cooperation and hopes to learn from each other with like-minded partners in various fields to jointly deal with the new era in which there is no correct answer. Toyota and BYD have a close partnership, focusing on BEV (pure electric vehicles), but not in other areas.

In addition, Guangzhou Auto Toyota, a Toyota joint venture in China, said on Weibo: "there are no relevant cooperation plans, and plug-in hybrid models under construction are still planned to carry Toyota's power technology."

According to previous media reports, Toyota's joint venture in China has plans to introduce plug-in hybrid in the next two to three years, and the technical route is likely to adopt DM-i technology derived from BYD instead of Toyota's original Hybird model. At the same time, the report also pointed out that from the perspective of future product planning, there are about 2-3 models involved, but there is no further information on whether these products will be able to land as promised.

In March 2020, BYD Toyota Electric vehicle Technology Co., Ltd. was officially established with a registered capital of 345 million yuan and headquartered in Pingshan District, Shenzhen. Toyota Motor Company and BYD Co., Ltd. respectively hold 50% of the shares. According to the agreement, the joint venture company established by the two sides will carry out the design, research and development of pure electric vehicles and the platforms and parts used by the vehicles.

So far, Toyota has set up two pure electric vehicles, the bZ4X and the bZ3, in China. In October 2022, Toyota's first pure streetcar, the bZ4X, was launched and introduced to the Chinese market, produced by FAW Toyota and Guangzhou Automobile Toyota respectively. The bZ3, the second bZ series model of FAW Toyota and the first model of cooperation between Toyota and BYD, is based on the e-TNGA platform, in which Toyota provides complete vehicle design, BYD provides three electric technology and positioning pure electric medium-sized sedan, which went on sale in March 2023 at a price range of 16.98-199800 yuan. In terms of power, the bZ3 battery and motor are provided by Fudi of BYD, in which the battery uses lithium iron phosphate battery, which is 49.92kWh and 65.28kWh, respectively, and the rear single motor layout is used to provide high and low power versions for consumers to choose from. The corresponding motor power is 135kW and 180kW respectively. The CLTC mileage is 517km and 616km.

Unfortunately, the two pure electric cars, bZ4X and bZ3, have not been bought by consumers in the car market. Retail data show that from January to April this year, cumulative sales of bZ3 and bZ4X were 14065 and 11, with no sales in February and April.

With the reform of the car market, Toyota's position in the Chinese market began to change. In the era of fuel vehicles, Toyota is undoubtedly one of the big winners in both the global market and the Chinese market, but with the gradual decline of the market share of fuel vehicles, Toyota, which relies on fuel vehicles to seize market share, has obviously declined. At present, Toyota is accelerating the electrified layout transformation, according to Japanese media reports, Toyota will invest 13 billion US dollars in areas such as pure electric vehicles and AI. For Toyota, "how to stop the decline in sales in China" is an urgent problem to be solved.

In addition to responding to the above news, Toyota China also responded to online messages such as "Akio Toyoda attacked the chaos of the new energy market" and "Akio Toyoda openly questioned Huawei". Toyota China pointed out that the former was "taken out of context because there is no such official statement", while the latter "did not have such a thing at all".

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat