LE Mans, France -- Toyota’s Gazoo racing arm has developed a full-electric sports car that aims to show that EVs can be just as exhilarating to drive as sporty, fast gasoline models.
Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda has tested a prototype of the car, which looks like battery-electric-model on the outside, but inside offers the driving sensations of an internal combustion engine car.
“(When you drive it), you hear the engine noise inside the car and you have a manual transmission with a clutch -- you truly do not notice you are driving an electric car, the only thing missing is the smell of gasoline,” Toyoda said on the sidelines of the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race on June 10.
Toyoda said a decision has not been made on whether the GR electric sports car will be brought to market.
If it goes into series production, Gazoo’s electric sports car could be the pinnacle of Toyota’s electrification push, just as the GranTurismo Folgore high-performance coupe is for Maserati and production models derived from the Mission X hypercar are for Porsche.
Toyota so far has been a laggard in the electrification age, launching the bZ4X midsize battery-electric SUV in late 2021, followed last year by the similarly sized Lexus RZ.
Despite being the world's largest automaker, Toyota produced just 24,000 EVs worldwide under its own and the Lexus brands in 2022, compared with the 1.31 million units sold by Tesla.
Toyota plans to sell 3.5 million electric vehicles a year by 2030.
