A pioneer in hybrid powertrain, Toyota is finally going all-electric

Even the best-organized, the most rigorous and the most persevering reputable builders can fall asleep on their laurels. After having been right before everyone else by developing, in 1997, hybrid engines (17 million units produced since then), Toyota did not anticipate the 100% electric revolution.

The movement therefore started without the Japanese manufacturer, which must now catch up with it as quickly as possible. Therefore, the appearance, Monday April 19, of the bZ4X at the Shanghai Motor Show constitutes an important step for the world number one of the automobile.

This bizarre name which inaugurates a new category of models stamped “bZ” (for “Beyond zero”, in other words “beyond zero-emissions”) within the range, designates the first real battery-powered electric car from Toyota.

Limited distribution

Until then, the Japanese firm had adapted an electric motor on its C-HR for the Chinese market alone and developed two generations of the Mirai, a model certainly electric but powered by a fuel cell running on hydrogen. Limited release versions.

The manufacturer estimated that the hybrid would become the market standard in the long term while waiting for hydrogen models to take over to complete the electrification of the automobile. A vision that the sudden acceleration in sales of battery models (global sales jumped 37% last year) driven in China and Europe, has made largely obsolete.

Article reserved for our subscribers Read also Toyota wants to win in the hydrogen car, especially in France

This obvious desire not to give priority to conventional electrification has rubbed off on the entire Japanese market despite the presence of Nissan, which is much more involved in this area. Last year, the Archipelago registered only 31,000 electric cars against 995,000 in China (the world’s largest market), 726,000 in Europe and 288,000 in the United States. In other words, a drop in the expanding ocean of “watture”.

Absent from a specialty dominated by Tesla, Toyota could not continue to ignore the electric car

Absent from a specialty dominated by Tesla (500,000 units in 2020) ahead of Volkswagen (220,000), General Motors (210,000) and Renault-Nissan (180,000), Toyota could not continue to ignore the car electric. It benefits from strong fiscal and regulatory incentives in China as in Europe, unlike conventional hybrids, and the tightening of environmental standards on all continents, including the United States, also pleads for it.

You have 39.6% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.