Toyota racing to develop long-range EVs
Japanese car-maker wakes up to pure-electric potential, will now offer range of electric cars that will have 300km-plus range from 2020Toyota is about to make a dramatic U-turn on its strategy of developing plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to concentrate on long-range pure-electric vehicles, says a new report.
Abandoning its policy of creating pure-electric vehicles for urban environments and short-distance commuting and plug-in hybrid or hydrogen fuel-cell-powered vehicles for long-distance travel, according to Japanese newspaper Nikkei, Toyota has been forced to rethink this decision to develop a range of pure-electric vehicles that can travel more than 300km on a single charge.
It's thought growing demand among customers and concerns among management that Toyota lacks a pure-electric rival for forthcoming zero-emission cars from Nissan, Volkswagen and Tesla have pressurised the car-maker to change its mind on long-range EVs.
According to Nikkei, Toyota will now set up an engineering team early in 2017 that will be tasked with developing new pure-electric technology in time to have a long-range pure-electric car on sale as soon as 2020.
Cementing Toyota's decision to rapidly develop a long-range pure-electric vehicle is a recent report, published by China's government, that announces new plans for 40 per cent of all vehicles on its roads by 2030 to be pure-electric in order to tackle air pollution.
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