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On October 2, local time, a Toyota spokesman said Toyota had decided to postpone production of its first electric car in the United States to 2026, but Toyota pointed out that seven all-electric vehicles will be sold in the United States in the next two years. At present, the production time of Toyota's electric vehicle battery plant in the United States has been postponed to the first half of 2026. Toyota said it would start producing one SUV in Kentucky in early 2026 and another unspecified all-electric SUV at a factory in Princeton, Indiana at the end of the year.

Toyota had planned to produce a three-row, battery-powered SUV at an assembly plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, by the end of 2025, its first electric car production line in the United States. Toyota also spent $1.3 billion to equip the plant with electric car production equipment in February and invested $1.4 billion in the Indiana plant to produce a second electric vehicle in April of the same year. But now it has been postponed to 2026.

Toyota's decision to delay the production of electric SUV models in the United States until 2026 has sparked widespread concern and speculation in the industry. Toyota, which has been frequently criticized for its slow electrification, did not directly explain the reasons for the delay, but industry insiders said the decision could be related to the current slowdown in demand for electric vehicles in the US market. In the first quarter of this year, hybrid car sales in the United States grew by 43%, accounting for 9% of the market, while electric cars grew by 2.7% and accounted for only 7%, according to the research company. In addition, Toyota and Honda together accounted for 70% of the u.s. hybrid market in the first quarter.

Toyota (including Dafa and Hino) sold 5.2 million vehicles worldwide in the first half of this year, down 4.7 per cent from a year earlier, but is still the world's largest car company with the largest sales and net profit, according to official figures. In terms of market segmentation, Toyota sold 438800 hybrid models in the US market in the first half of the year, up 66% from the same period last year, accounting for about 60% of the hybrid market share in the US market, while hybrid models in the European market also accounted for more than 50% of Toyota's total sales.

Although the global electric vehicle is expanding rapidly, Toyota is still more convinced that there will be a more market for hybrid and internal combustion engines in the future. at present, Toyota's new energy vehicle product line is mostly mixed models, and there are not many pure electric vehicles. this is also related to Toyota's conservative attitude towards electrification transformation, and Akio Toyoda has repeatedly launched attacks on electric vehicles, which has attracted everyone's attention. At the beginning of this year, Akio Toyoda said: "No matter how much progress electric vehicles have made, hybrid vehicles, fuel cell electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel vehicles will still account for 70% of the market sales." And stressed: "the engine will stay." In short, Akio Toyoda thinks pure electric cars account for only 30% of the market.

Early last month, it was also reported that Toyota planned to significantly slow its electric vehicle production, cutting its global production forecast for 2026 to 1 million vehicles, about 30 per cent lower than previously announced sales forecasts for the same year. According to the new plan, Toyota aims to produce just over 400000 electric vehicles by 2025 and more than double production next year.

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