So, when someone who is chairman of the car company which sells the most cars in the world says something, people listen. Toyota sold a total of 11.23 million cars in 2023, out of a market of around 92 million cars, or around 12% of global car sales. So perhaps he is right? Well a large number of people do not think so.
His arguments against electric cars include
- access to electricity – 1 billion people worldwide do not have electricity. However, there are only 1.475 billion cars in the world, or 2 for every 11 people in the world. Further more, it seems likely that the 1 billion without electricity, probably also do not have a car.
- Customer choice – he argues that customers should be able to choose the powertrain they want. However, the electric car has not been explored by Toyota, as they only have one fully electric model, the BZ4X and the UX400e (under the Lexus brand). The BZ4X is a premium car, but it only has an official efficiency of 2.9 miles per KWH, which is worse than the large tesla X gets (this car is over 34cm longer, and almost 9cm taller. This makes it more comparable to the tesla y (still 6cm longer, 2.4cm higher, slightly less ground clearance, but 34% more cargo space), however this car (which you can see is bigger) gets 4 miles per kwh, over 33% more efficient.
Well, lets look at the statistics.
Continue reading “Toyota now claims just the electric car market will never be bigger than 30% – you have to be kidding”