Sato has said his EV overhaul will lead off with Lexus, which already has said it plans to go fully electric worldwide by 2035 and sell 1 million EVs globally in 2030.
Toyota, as a whole, is targeting global sales of 3.5 million EVs in that time frame.
Getting there will require a rapid climb. In 2022, Toyota sold only 24,466 full-electric vehicles worldwide. That compares with 2.6 million hybrids in the same period.
Playing catchup
But Toyota is stepping up the pace in 2023, with a ramped up rollout of the Toyota bZ4X crossover and its Lexus premium counterpart, the RZ.
Toyota’s global EV sales more than tripled to 9,016 vehicles in the first two months of the year.
In the critical U.S. market, meanwhile, Toyota sold about 1,880 EVs through March. By contrast, General Motors, its top mainstream American rival, sold more than 20,000.
But even as Toyota moves faster into EVs, the competition is not standing still.
If Toyota reaches 1.5 million EV sales in 2026, Chinese EV rival BYD could be selling 3 million and Tesla as much as 5 million, said Koji Endo, senior auto analyst at SBI Securities Co. in Tokyo.
“Toyota’s 2026 goal is a big, big jump, as far as Toyota is concerned,” Endo said. “But you need to compare it with other makers. There could be half a dozen companies selling more than 1.5 million EVs in 2026. Can they really catch up to those front-runners? That’s the question.”
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