Japanese Toyota is now cutting its production of electric cars by 30 percent. The brand otherwise had big plans to catch up with its competitors.
Toyota's chairman has previously said that electric cars will never account for more than 30 percent of the market for new cars.
Now the Japanese brand is reducing its own production of electric cars by exactly 30 percent. At least in relation to the sales and production targets for 2026.
This is written by the business media Nikkei .
Otherwise, we don't have to go back further than the spring of 2024 to find a Toyota that revealed big plans for how it would catch up with the competition when it comes to electric cars.
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The goal was then to sell at least one and a half million electric cars by 2026 at the latest. But now Toyota has changed its mind.
According to media information, Toyota is now 'only' aiming to sell 1 million electric cars in 2026. This is 30 percent lower than the car brand's ambition just a year ago.
The reason is supposed to be the declining interest in electric cars, similar to what other car brands are currently experiencing. The customers are simply not there. At least not in a number large enough to justify one and a half million electric cars.
Toyota is now aiming to hit a production of 400,000 electric cars in 2025. Something they want to more than double already the following year. Last year it was 100,000 electric cars, and between January and July 2024 the Japanese have sold 80,000 electric cars.
For this reason, they and the competitors may be forced to produce a much higher number of electrified cars than there are actually buyers for. Especially for the European market. A number of new rules threaten several car brands with very large stalls. Read more about it here.
At the same time, however, more and more car brands have announced that they are jumping from the otherwise very ambitious goal of only building electric cars. Most recently, Volvo has had to admit that there aren't enough customers to simply leave the internal combustion engine alone.
Volkswagen and Mercedes are brands that have outright said that they will take money from the development of electric cars and spend it on very advanced internal combustion engines.
Read more exciting news from and about the world of cars right here!