- Just days after Volvo announced it would no longer aim for a target for 100% of its global passenger car sales to be fully electric by 2030, Toyota announced that it plans to scale back the extent of its future EV production.
- Its global EV output target for 2026 has been reduced to one million units, down approximately 30% from previous targets.
- Toyota made the decision in what it called a slowdown in the global EV market, with its projected sales for future year also adjusted.
Toyota tweaks its EV strategy
According to Nikkei Asia, Toyota had previously planned to sell around 1.5 million EVs annually by 2026, with its production figures now tweaked to 400,000 EVs in 2025, and still plans to more than double that production figure, to one million by 2026. Despite this switch in strategy, Toyota’s EV ambitions in the longer term still look bright. The one million EVs planned to be produced is still much higher than currently, which shows that Toyota’s electric car demand will continue to grow, just not at the rate it originally believed.Its EV sales for 2023 stood at 100,000, and by the end of Q2 this year, the manufacturer had already sold 80,000 EVs – suggesting that this year will still show some year-on-year increase in electric car sales. Additionally, its work in the solid-state battery sector could give its future EVs an advantage over their lithium-ion rivals.
As well as Volvo and Toyota’s shifting plans, Volkswagen has considered shutting a German factory amid a lack of demand for new EVs. However, with some brand new EVs losing a high proportion of their initial value after having just a few thousand miles on the odometer, it’s no surprise that many consumers are shunning them in favour of the cheaper, used EV market – which continues to see strong growth.
