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Toyota Motor made efforts last week to shore up its reputation as a leader in green vehicles by unveiling its plan for EV and fuel cell mass production in the United States. President Akio Toyoda announced plans to produce electric vehicles in the United States by 2012 with a first production run of electric vehicles by 2015. Toyoda’s comments at the Japan National Press Club built on similar comments by Tatsuaki Yokoyama in front of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) last July about an American EV rollout. Yokoyama stated that the automaker has plans in place to reduce production costs by 90% in order to reach the 2015 goal without passing high costs to consumers.
In order to achieve these goals, Toyota has begun working closely with components manufacturers to improve prototype performance. The company recognizes a variety of challenges in producing electric and fuel cell vehicles including overall range, cold starting capability and cost. Toyota’s fuel cell and electric vehicle plans hinge on working closely with partners to overcome these challenges. Toyoda and Yokoyama have continued to cite the gradual development of the Prius in supporting Toyota's "slow but steady wins the race" approach to green vehicles.
These plans sound great on paper but Yokoyama and other Toyota executives have set forth conditions for new vehicle rollouts. Yokoyama made it clear that the impetus for a massive EV and fuel cell vehicle rollout would be an across-the-board benefit for shareholders. In other words, Toyota is holding back new vehicles until consumers, manufacturing partners and actual shareholders benefit greatly from green technology. Toyota has been criticized for resting on its laurels when it comes to green vehicles and Yokoyama’s reasoning lends credence to these criticisms. The automaker has been ahead of competitors in terms of hybrid technology for the past decade with the Prius but will not get alternative-fuel vehicles to market for nearly another decade. This deliberate approach by Toyota may benefit loyal customers and shareholders down the road but Nissan, Hyundai and others are catching up quickly.
Toyota’s projections about the potential for EVs and fuel cell vehicles demonstrate the limitations of their vision for green vehicles. The automaker projects that fuel cell vehicles with the latest battery packs easily surpass existing EVs in terms of performance after about 100 miles. This estimate sounds reasonable in 2009 but it does not take into account advancements in EV infrastructure worldwide. As public charging stations pop up from Tokyo to London, this performance differential will become almost nonexistant. In many ways, the news coming from Toyota Motor Company in recent week has been a hedge against prospective failures in the EV market.
