Toyota was one of the last major manufacturers to produce electric automobiles, but it may have been the first to abandon gasoline-only vehicles.
According to two business insiders, the corporation is shifting the majority, eventually all, of its Toyota and Lexus lineup to hybrid only models, nearly three decades after introducing the Prius, its gasoline electric hybrid.
In January, Akio Toyoda, the chairman of the business, predicted that just 30% of EVs will be used worldwide. He proposes a’multi-pathway’ approach that includes electric cars in addition to hybrids, fuel cell cars, and green fuels, and possibly even some additional as-yet-undiscovered technology.
“Going ahead, we aim to evaluate, carline by carline, whether going all hybrid, makes sense,” the head of sales and marketing for Toyota in North America, David Christ told.
According to the newswire, the assessments will accompany every model revision, if not before. This features the upcoming RAV4 2026 model year redesign.
Although Toyota has not yet made a final decision, two people with knowledge of the company’s product planning conversations stated that the carmaker is “highly likely” to abandon the gasoline-only model for the North American market.
For the 2025 model year, Toyota has already decided to discontinue the gasoline-only Camry model; in contrast, the Land Cruiser and Sienna minivan are exclusively available as hybrid vehicles.
According to two unnamed sources, a number of the company’s hybrid-only models will probably also be available as plug-in hybrids with larger batteries.
Christ noted that Toyota has not given a deadline for producing an all hybrid lineup, and a clutch of models of the likes of economy cars and pickups, could take longer due to consumer price sensitivity on the entry level versions.
Besides hybrids, Toyota has a target of converting 30% of its global fleet to EVs by 2030, two persons in the know informed.
The company had earlier announced plans of investing USD 35 billion in electric platforms and new batteries by then.
Hybrids accounted for a mere 9% of the company’s sales in 2018, which increased to 37% as of June, the newswire said.
Christ said Toyota expects hybrid sales to keep accelerating. “Next year,” he said, “we definitely will be well over 50% of our total volume.”
Toyota’s plan to offer more plug-in hybrids aims to take advantage of U.S. emissions rules that give them outsized credit for reducing pollution. That’s now possible because Toyota is opening a North Carolina battery plant that, by 2030, will have 14 production lines capable of producing 30 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of batteries annually.
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