Akio Toyoda has shown a huge range of battery electric vehicles from Toyota and Lexus.
Toyota has not really made its presence in the electric vehicle space felt at all. Their investment in hydrogen electric power has been more apparent, with cars like the Mirai being pushed further. Today that all changes. President Akio Toyoda made a huge announcement, unveiling over 15 electric vehicles and making bold statements about Toyota’s direction towards electric vehicle production.
By 2030, Toyota aims to have 30 battery electric vehicle (BEV) models available for sale. This includes both commercial and passenger vehicles. Toyota says that by creating many different types of BEVs, they’ll be more ready to cater to different customer and market demands. With an arsenal of BEVs to offer the world, they’re hoping their global BEV sales will amount to 3.5 million per year by the year 2030.
Lexus will be at the forefront of this battle, with 100% of its cars sold in Europe, North America and China anticipated to be electric vehicles by 2030. That 100% BEV goal will be for all markets by the year 2035.
Now let’s look at some of the vehicles unveiled at the event. Do keep in mind that many of the vehicles shown were not elaborated on at all.
Toyota bZ Series
The Toyota bZ series of electric vehicles is probably the best place to start as the bZ4x is the closest thing Toyota has to a production-ready battery electric vehicle. The bZ4x was co-developed with Subaru. bZ stands for Beyond Zero as Toyota aims to go beyond zero carbon emissions by switching to BEVs. This series of cars will be available to customers all around the world and will probably form the mainstay of electric cars sold by Toyota.
Besides the production-ready bZ4x, they also showed a prototype bZ compact SUV, which was touted as the driver-centric model of the bunch with a coupé-like silhouette and inviting looks.
The bZ Small Crossover is the smallest vehicle in the series and is designed for Europe and Japan. It is also the most power efficient vehicle in its class at 125 Wh/km and its smaller size and battery capacity is aimed at making the vehicle more affordable to customers.
The bZ Sdn is a compact sedan that is aimed at first-time car buyers while the bZ Large SUV is made for large families and has 3 rows of seats.
Lexus will be calling its range of electrified options… Lexus Electrified. No surprises there. While that’s essentially what Genesis are doing with their BEVs, it seems the model naming will still have the same nomenclature structure as before for Lexus.
Their first BEV was previewed and was shown to be in driving condition. It will be called the Lexus RX 450 E. Lexus will ensure consistency in driving feel between electric vehicles and petrol-powered ones by working on their Lexus Driving Signature.
There are other BEVs in development such as their Sports Battery EV, which is being planned with the introduction of solid state batteries.
Other BEVs shown were not elaborated upon, but here they are.
Two light commercial vehicles appear in green, there’s also a gold EV that looks like it could be an MR2 successor, a red and a yellow crossover coupe, an FJ cruiser-like SUV and a BEV pick-up.
As for Lexus, besides the sports car and SUV, they appear to also be working on a 4 door sedan and a much larger SUV as well.
Watch the press conference for yourself right here:
