Toyota, Honda, Nissan and other Japanese automakers are serious about rolling out battery electric vehicles to catch up with the world's frontrunners like Tesla and BYD.
The sporty FT-Se is displayed in a dim light before Toyota Motor Corp. CEO Koji Sato speaks during a briefing on the media day at the Japan Mobility Show in Tokyo, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. Takero Kato, the executive in charge of electric vehicles at Toyota, said that not once, but twice, to emphasize what he considers the message at this year’s Tokyo auto show.
Among the foreign makers taking part are Mercedes-Benz, a perennial Japanese favorite, and China's BYD.Toyota executives have acknowledged that Japan’s top automaker has fallen behind rivals in EV development like Tesla of the U.S. and China’s BYD Auto. That is partly because of Toyota’s past success in hybrids, exemplified in the Prius, which have a gasoline engine in addition to an electric motor.
In Japan, EVs make up less than 5% of the auto market, according to the International Energy Agency. In the U.S., where Tesla dominates, EVs account for just under 10% of auto sales, although President Joe Biden is pushing for requiring at least 54% of new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2030. In China, a third of vehicles sold are EVs.
“We are looking toward an electrified future that we hope to build together with our customers,” Kato said.“Over the short term, we see Chinese EVs from brands such as BYD, SAIC-GM-Wuling and Tesla-branded EVs will continue to gain market share as there is little competition at the moment,” he said. Among them is the Hyper Tourer minivan concept that Nissan says has advanced technologies like autonomous driving. It runs on high-energy-density solid-state batteries.
In Nissan and elsewhere, a key issue for EVs is battery charge time and driving range. While all the world’s major automakers are working to shorten charge time and lengthen cruise time per charge, the U.S. startup Ample has come up with a different solution — battery swapping.
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