Toyota to phase out standalone electric cars
Change in approach means the replacement for today’s Toyota bZ4X is likely to be a fully electric version of the RAV4...
Toyota is planning to move away from selling standalone electric cars, such as the bZ4X electric SUV, and will instead offer each of its mainstream models with a choice of hybrid and fully electric power.
Andrea Carlucci, Director of Marketing and Product Development at Toyota Motor Europe, told What Car?: “We’re trying to reduce complexity in our range at a time when legislation is obviously forcing us to go towards a broad EV [electric vehicle] line-up.
“The way forwards is to streamline our range around selected historical nameplates. It’s about, in the future, having one body silhouette [in each class] that’s based on a multi-energy platform. But it takes time and you have to engineer it that way from the start.
“Some competitors have taken existing platforms [originally intended to just underpin petrol and diesel cars] and made them multi-energy, but then you have a lot of compromise. The result is something that’s not the best for any technology.”
When it was suggested to Carlucci that this drive to reduce complexity could see the Toyota bZ4X replaced with an electric version of the Toyota RAV4, he agreed. “It’s not signed off, but I think it makes a lot of sense,” he said. “Once you have a proper multi-energy platform, you can have a single silhouette that’s offered in hybrid, plug-in hybrid and [fully] electric forms.”
Despite the ambition to reduce the number of nameplates in the Toyota range, however, Carlucci insisted that this doesn’t mean niche Toyotas are at risk of being axed.
“We don’t want to oversimplify,” he said. “Take GR [performance] models. These obviously create complexity in our line-up and don’t have enormous value in terms of direct profit. But the value that GR has brought to the Toyota brand in other ways is incredible.
“I’d say we were out of the mind of most of the customers who bought the Toyota GR Yaris. Half of them were putting it into the garage as their third or fourth car alongside really upper luxury vehicles. These customers would never previously have thought to go into a Toyota dealership. Probably not even a Lexus one.
“This is why I’m always saying to the UK team that we should increase GR volume, despite the [ZEV mandate] CO2 target.”
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