Toyota Corolla EV coming – one day

Hybrid vehicle icon Toyota has changed its tune on all-electric vehicles and will launch its first EV in Japan late next year – a two-seat battery-powered baby-car that will travel for just 100km at speeds of up to 60km/h between recharges, imaginatively dubbed the Ultra Compact BEV.

Although the Japanese giant is late to the EV party – until now resisting the switch from petrol-electric hybrids with almost religious zeal as it poured billions of R&D dollars into hydrogen fuel-cell technology – it seems the flood-gates have now burst open.

As EV momentum builds within the company, the ultimate example of the technology is undoubtedly a battery-powered version of its global top-seller, the Corolla, and it's very much a case of when not if the world's top-selling car will get the EV treatment.

However, Toyota says a Corolla EV would not be viable in Australia at present due to cost – and that situation won’t change until 2025 or 2030.

"There's no use bringing electrification to the market if it's unaffordable. No one will buy it," said Toyota Australia's vice-president of sales and marketing Sean Hanley at this week’s Tokyo motor show, where the Japanese brand revealed a swathe of new EVs.

"I mean, can you imagine if I bought out a full EV Corolla model, over hybrid?" he added, highlighting the Corolla hybrid's sub-$30K price in Australia.

"Imagine if I was trying to sell a $53,000 Corolla? How many people would buy it?" he queried.

"That’s not to say you would never bring out a full electric Corolla -- of course one day we will," he confirmed.

"But it's got to be affordable, otherwise the overall positive impact to environment is less effective."

Outside Japan, Toyota will release its first global EV in Europe from 2022, a compact EV jointly-developed with Subaru that could come to Australia by 2025.

"We've never ruled out bringing electric vehicles in full to Australia, it's just a matter of timing," Hanely told Aussie journalists at the Tokyo show, where the brand unveiled a number of quirky concepts including a broomstick powered by an electric motor.

"Toyota will certainly be part of bringing electric vehicles to Australia in the future. It's just a matter of when, not if."

Hanley wouldn’t confirm exact when Toyota's first EV will arrive in local showrooms, but confirmed it won’t be before 2025.

"I don’t have a particular date today to announce but it's fair to say that between 2025 and 2030 I think we'll have EVs in the Toyota line-up in Australia.

"I think globally it'll happen a long way before that and it's just a matter of time for us to bring them to the country."

Hanley said the biggest hurdles for EVs in Australia was not a lack interest but prohibitive pricing and a dearth of recharging infrastructure.

"It's about infrastructure and affordability. That’s critical here," he said.

While Toyota EVs are another half a decade away from Australia, the Japanese brand will continue to ramp up its hybrid focus in the meantime and expects them to account for 20 per cent of its sales by 2020, or an estimated 40,000 cars per annum.

"We expect to sell over 200,000 cars this year [2019] and we should do that next year," observed Hanley.

"Today the [hybrid] mix is 12 per cent. If we had better supply we'd be closer to 20 right now. But we're on target to hit that goal by end of 2020.

With the advent of a hybrid Toyota Yaris in early 2020 and a hybrid Toyota HiLux dual-cab ute by 2023, Toyota expects the hybrid sales mix to be closer to 40 per cent by 2030.

Toyota luxury brand Lexus is tipped to jump on the EV bandwagon much sooner, with its first EV – based on the LF-30 SUV concept revealed in Tokyo this week -- due to arrive in showrooms from 2020.

Toyota also has plans to make cutting-edge solid-state battery technology commercially viable by 2025.