News about Akio Toyoda

Car makers continue to respond to a slowdown in demand for electric vehicles with a raft of announcements that have added to concerns about the transition to zero-emission motoring. The global downturn in sales of EVs has been triggered by a cocktail of diverging policies on green incentives, range and charge anxiety among drivers and the fact prices haven't come down as much as experts had forecast.

Suspension of production of 500e in Turin will start today (Friday 13 September) and run for four weeks, Stellantis said, adding it was 'working hard to manage at its best this hard phase of transition' to EVs. Find out which other brands have recently announced delays to their electric car plans.

The world's biggest car maker has shortened its EV output for 2026 to 1 million rather than the 1.5 million it had previously forecast. It comes just days after Volvo announced it had abandoned its plans to become an electric-only car maker by 2030. Various brands have already shortened their EV expectations amidst slower-than-expected EV sales in recent years.

Volvo has confirmed it has backtracked on its promise to sell only fully electric cars by 2030 due to a fall in demand for battery vehicles. The Swedish company announced on Wednesday it is now aiming for 90 to 100% of its global sales to be either pure electric or plug-in hybrid by the end of the decade. It comes in response to a decline in appetite for EVs across major markets, including a slowing uptake of battery cars among private buyers in the UK. Find out which other manufacturers have performed U-turns on their battery car ambitions.

Auto Express says 70% of EVs will be subject to the additional 'luxury car' premium tax paid on top of the £180-a-year standard vehicle excise duty rate. It believes this will 'create further cost barriers for drivers looking to transition' to battery cars and called on the new Labour Government to scrap the levy for zero-emission vehicles.

Luca De Meo, boss at Renault, has warned that customers are not ready to switch to battery-powered vehicles and called for 'more flexibility in the schedule'. It comes after Ford recently said its own plans to become an EV-only brand from 2030 were 'too ambitious' and Fiat confirmed it has torn up plans for its 500 city car to be electric-only because older drivers don't want electric models.

Ford has hit reverse on its plans to sell only electric cars in Europe from the end of the decade, the chief operating officer of its EV division has said. In an interview with Autocar , Marin Gjaja (inset), the boss at Ford Model E, said 'uncertainty' around EV demand and legislation has forced it to shelve the target of 2030 for ditching petrol and diesel models. He said 2030 was 'too ambitious' as he confirmed the company would continue offering new hybrid cars in Europe beyond that date.

Japan, a nation which prides itself on a tradition of honour, has been rocked by the biggest scandal to hit its automotive sector in years. Five major auto makers are at the heart of an ongoing probe by government authorities after all admitted filing false safety reports to gain vehicle certification. Toyota - the world's largest car maker - and Mazda have been forced to halt vehicle shipments.

Toyota has recalled more than 100,000 pickup trucks and Lexus cars over concerns dangerous machine debris may have been left in their engines during production.  The Japanese carmaker recalled 102,000 2022-23 Tundra and LX vehicles in the US over the issue on Thursday.  The manufacturing fault occurred during the assembly process for the V35A-FTS engine where debris may not have been removed. 

The recall covers several Toyota Tundra pickups and Lexus LX 600 SUVs from the 2022 to 2024 model years. Toyota said on Wednesday that certain aspects of the vehicles' automatic transmissions would not immediately disengage when they went into neutral.

Ford has announced that it will cut investment on EVs because it can't sell enough to offset costs, after saying that it lost $47,000 on each electric car it sold last year. Jim Farley, Toyota's CEO, announced on Tuesday that the company would instead increase investment in hybrid cars, a long-favored feature by the drivetrain's godfather. Toyota has been a vocal proponent of hybrid cars since the Prius was released more than 25 years ago and remains adamant against electric vehicles. That caution may have been beneficial.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders reported in January that this 'historic milestone' was achieved in January, with all-time electric vehicle sales in the UK exceeding 1,001,677 units by the end of January 2024. It comes at a pivotal time for the industry as a result of a significant decrease in demand for EVs, which saw only one out of 11 private buyers opt for a battery-powered vehicle last year.

Who do you trust more: engineers or politicians? This is an especially critical issue when all the Western world's governments have agreed to 'net zero carbon dioxide emissions.' Many of those companies want to hear, but Akio Toyoda, who last week was the second industrialist to tell the bald truth.

Akko Toyoda (pictured), Toyota's chairman, expects that combustion engines, as well as hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells, would play a vital role in the future. When a billion people worldwide live without electricity, Toyoda, whose grandfather founded Toyota in Japan in 1937, said that the switch to battery electric cars, also known as BEVs.

Battery-powered cars will only be able to account for 30 percent of the global market, according to the company's chairman. His remarks have sparked questions about consumers' willingness to cooperate with net zero goals that have been set to solve the climate crisis. Traditional combustion engine cars, hybrids, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, according to Akio Toyoda, would make up the majority of the market. Since a billion people around the world live without electricity, the chairman - whose grandfather founded Toyota in Japan in 1937 - said that the change to electric cars was not the solution. Electric cars will never dominate the automobile market, according to the chairman of the world's biggest car manufacturer Toyota

People want the freedom to buy a gas powered or hybrid rather than being forced into battery-powered electric vehicles, according to Toyota's chairman. During a company press conference in Japan, the former CEO reiterated the company's'multi-pathway' strategy, which would involve producing various types of vehicles for various customers. Toyoda's opinion carries weight - he is the grandson of Toyota's founder and was CEO from 2009 to 2023

Although battery-powered vehicles have dominated the late model, many see hydrogen cars as the long-term answer, like BMW's latest iX5 (pictured). There are two ways to convert hydrogen to power vehicles in seconds during rapid refuelling. The first step is to heat the hydrogen gas in a converted internal combustion engine.

Toyota HiLux enthusiasts have long been waiting for the company to produce an electric-powered version, while an Australian company has confirmed that they are in negotiations with the Japanese auto giant that may see an EV model on sale next year. However, if the cost of converting HiLux utes (left and top right) to battery power is anything to go by, the final price tag will be prohibitive. It's also likely that the limited-edition electric-powered HiLuxs would be mainly exported to mining and government fleets.