Toyota bets on alternative-fuel engines as electric car sales wane
Category Some Customers Carmakers Has Towards Toyota Quick As Vehicles To Been As Other In Does Options The For Offer Not But Electric Move
The world’s largest carmaker Toyota has revealed new prototypes of its internal combustion engines capable of running on hydrogen, along with gasoline and other fuels, as it seeks to move towards more carbon reducing technologies.
Toyota has not been as quick as other carmakers to move towards electric vehicles but does offer some options in the category for customers. The recent slowdown in the sale of electric cars has coincided with an uptick in the sale of hybrid vehicles for the manufacturer.
Toyota, alongside other carmakers Mazda and Subaru, have said they’re making progress on developing smaller, more efficient engines that can work with electric car manufacturing platforms and capable of meeting strict emission regulations in the future.
Emboldened by robust hybrid car sales, Toyota and its partners say fuel-burning engines have a role to play even as the industry shifts to battery electric cars in a global push to decarbonize.
The Japanese manufacturers have long been criticised for hesitating to fully embrace electrification, while the Chinese car maker BYD and Elon Musk’s Tesla take the lead in battery-based electric cars.
“To become carbon neutral, what’s most important is to reduce emissions,” Toyota chief executive officer Koji Sato said at a joint briefing with the CEOs of Mazda and Subaru.
“What we need is an engine that can efficiently use various types of fuel.” Hiroki Nakajima, Toyota’s chief technology officer, declined to give a timeframe for when Toyota’s new engines would show up in its vehicles, but said the carmaker will make sure to have them in the market before stricter emission rules are enforced. He didn’t specify any geographies.
Toyota said Monday it’s conducting a study with petroleum company Idemitsu Kosan, heavy machinery maker Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and oil refiner Eneos Holdings, to roll out carbon neutral fuels in Japan by 2030.
Still, a banner year marked by record-breaking output, operating income and share prices have given Toyota the momentum and cash it will need to make good on promises to roll out millions of battery electric cars within the next few years. Last year, Mr Sato vowed Toyota would sell 1.5 million battery electric cars annually by 2026, and 3.5 million by 2030.
At the same time, Toyota has long argued that multiple options will be needed to navigate the shift to electrification — an approach that it calls a “multipathway” strategy that offers customers a broad choice of powertrains, including hybrids, hydrogen fuel cells and combustion engines, as well as battery electric cars.
Toyota, Mazda and Subaru touted engine prototypes that were more compact than existing technology, saying they would allow for more flexibility and creativity in design.
Subaru said it would stick to its signature horizontal boxer engine to retain its identity with consumers, but adapt it to burn alternative fuel. Toyota showed off 1.5 litre and 2.5 litre engines that were shorter and smaller, but more powerful.
“The engine can’t survive in its current form. It needs to change,” Mr Sato said.
Despite the detailed plans to develop new engines, Toyota said it remains committed to EVs. Earlier this month, the company said it will spend an additional ¥500bn (€2.94bn) on research and development to decarbonize and develop next-generation software.
At the end of the day, the carmakers said that decisions around developing engines with alternative fuels will depend on whether the technology makes sense business-wise.
“It’s more about business feasibility, whether it makes economic sense,” Tetsuo Fujiniki, Subaru’s chief technology officer, said.