Toyota launches $70B EV push; Lexus will be all-electric brand

TOKYO -- Toyota committed 8 trillion yen ($70 billion) to electrify its lineup by 2030, half of it to develop a battery electric vehicle lineup, as it looks to tap a growing market for zero-emissions cars.

But the world's biggest automaker, which is a relative latecomer to full-electric cars, said it expected annual sales of full-electric cars to reach only 3.5 million vehicles by the end of the decade, or around a third of its current vehicle sales.

That is less than rivals such as Volkswagen Group, which in July predicted that half of its global vehicle sales will be battery-powered cars by that date.

Speaking at a news briefing in Tokyo on Tuesday surrounded by more than a dozen planned full-electric models, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda said his company was still pursuing a multi-pronged, carbon-reduction strategy that also includes hybrid cars and hydrogen-powered vehicles.

"We want to leave all people with a choice, and rather than where or what we will focus on, we will wait a little longer until we understand where the market is going," Toyoda said.

His company's plan to introduce a full lineup of 30 all-electric cars by 2030 goes beyond the 15 models Toyota earlier said it would have available by 2025.

Toyota on Tuesday also said it planned to invest 2 trillion yen in battery production by 2030, up from the 1.5 trillion yen it announced earlier. That investment includes $1.29 billion for a new battery plant in North Carolina that will begin production in 2025.

EVs still only account for a small portion of car sales, but the market is growing rapidly, with new registrations up 41 percent in 2020 even as the global car market contracted by a sixth that year.

In November, Toyota declined to join a pledge signed by six major automakers, including GM and Ford to phase out fossil-fuel cars by 2040. It argued that not all parts of the world would be ready to transition to green cars by then.

In addition to electrified cars, Toyota is also developing internal combustion engines that run on hydrogen fuel. Toyoda said the technology could help to save some of Japan's 5.5 million auto jobs by allowing the car company to keep supply chains that would disappear with a full shift to electric cars.

Toyoda on Tuesday showed 15 concepts for upcoming Toyota and Lexus full-electric cars including sedans, SUVs, a small crossover designed for Europe and Japan, a pickup and a Lexus LFA-inspired supercar.

He said Lexus aims to have a full lineup of battery EVs in all vehicle segments by 2030 and for battery EVs to make up 100 percent of its global vehicles sales in 2035 in Europe, North America, and China -- totalling 1 million units globally.