Toyota says it would rather buy credits than ‘waste’ money on EVs
The CEO of Toyota isn’t mincing words, saying that he believes EVs will only make up 30% of the US new-vehicle market in 2030, half of the target the EPA sought last year. As the car industry’s largest hybrid pusher, Toyota says it is better positioned to just buy credits to close the EPA gap rather than “waste” money on BEVs, its CEO said.
In an interview with Automotive News, Toyota CEO Ted Ogawa said that the Japanese automaker plans to go with customer demand – and in his view, that’s varying degrees of “electrification,” usually in the form of hybrids with gas-burning engines.
Currently, the company is building a $13.9 million battery complex in North Carolina to be used in its EVs and hybrids sold in North America. Since 2021, Toyota has invested about $17 billion into its US manufacturing operations to build mostly hybrids.
“I know that EPA is now reconsidering what the regulation level should be. However, again, our starting point is what the customer demand should be. So, for example, 2030 regulations said the new-car market, more than half of it should be BEV, but our current plan is like 30%,” Ogawa said. “We are respecting the regulation, but more important is customer demand.”
What about closing the gap between proposed light-vehicle emissions regulations and what Toyota sells? “That’s a tough question. Regulation-wise, we would have to prepare something like credit purchase,” he told Automotive News. “It’s difficult to say, but it’s not better.”
“Wasted investment is worse than the credit purchase,” he added.
Toyota is one of the top-selling automakers, but EVs accounted for less than 1% of total sales last year. “Of course, to compare the battery to Tesla, we are behind; that may be true,” he said. “However, we are now catching up, not only the product but also the ecosystem surrounding the BEV area, such as the home charging or energy management.”
Electrek’s Take
Of course, none of this is terribly surprising. The brand has been a huge champion of hybrids all along, and sells just one EV for each of its two US brands, the Toyota bZ4X and Lexus RZ450e crossovers. Plus its love of hybrids has drawn loads of criticism from advocacy groups, including Public Citizen, for continuing to sell ICE and hybrid cars past 2030. Toyota also has a history of greenwashing its advertising and marketing, calling its half a dozen hybrid models “electrified,” which confuses consumers.
Toyota, like pretty much all automakers operating in the US, has a worried eye on China entering the US through Mexico – although BYD has said it has no plans to sell cars in the US due to too many hassles. Still, the fear is there, and the possibility looms that lower-priced Chinese vehicles will undercut those sold by other automakers, as happened in Mexico.
“Their product is so competitive, including the tariffs,” in Mexico, Ogawa told Automotive News. “But China also saw, for example, labor cost is increasing [and] material costs as well. So that’s why someday, they’ll be in the same condition” as other automakers in North America.
“Our dealers ask us every day how [we will compete with China in the U.S.] Still, we have the better product. However, it’s unclear how to keep competitiveness in terms of the MSRP or price area.”
Photo: Courtesy of Toyota
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LiveWire, the electric motorcycle brand spun out of Harley-Davidson, has just announced its latest electric motorcycle model. The new LiveWire S2 Alpanista is built on the same platform as the brand’s last two models, leveraging the Arrow platform as a versatile foundation for several diverse bikes.
The Arrow platform first received its debut with the LiveWire S2 Del Mar, which was then followed by the S2 Mulholland.
LiveWire announced that a high-performance electric maxi-scooter would be produced on the Arrow platform, but not before the company rolled out the S2 Alpinista. “The Alpinista is LiveWire’s first sport standard,” explained the company, “equipped with 17” wheels and tires, blending the best of street, sport, and hyper-tourer characteristics.”
The recently unveiled S2 Alpinista is mechanically quite similar to the two previous models sharing the platform. The 10.5 kWh battery that serves as the main structure of the bike will offer a maximum range of 120 miles (193 km) per charge under city riding conditions. It can be recharged with a Level 2 charger from 20-80% in just 1 hour and 20 minutes.
The 433 lb (196 kg) bike can achieve a 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) time of just 3.0 seconds, thanks to its powerful 63 kW (84 hp) motor. The S2 Alpinista can also reach an electronically limited top speed of 99 mph (159 km/h).
Priced at US $15,999 and already available at LiveWire dealerships in North America and Europe, the S2 Alpinista officially becomes the most affordable LiveWire electric motorcycle available to date, undercutting the $16,249 S2 Del Mar electric street tracker and the $16,499 Mulholland electric sport cruiser.
“Alpinista reimagines the S2 by combining the urban agility of a supermoto with the do-it-all nature of a touring bike, creating a practical and thrilling sport standard,” explained the brand.
The smaller 17″ wheels help reduce the seat height of the bike, and combined with the Dunlop Roadsmart IV tires, the street-optimized bike is ideal for “both daily commutes and spirited rides through winding roads.”
The S2 Alpinista comes with 6-axis IMU from Bosch providing cornering-enhanced antilock braking and cornering-enhanced traction control systems, in addition to four preset ride modes and two custom modes.
Now the third model launched on the Arrow platform, the S2 Alpanista underscores the versatility of LiveWire’s workhorse. The approach was intended to allow the e-motorcycle offshoot to quickly innovate with multiple styles of motorcycles all sharing key structural and drivetrain components. The move has largely been seen as an engineering success, with three models hitting the road in under three years. However, sales have yet to reach targets set by LiveWire as the more premium electric motorcycle industry has experienced a rocky few years.
As a LiveWire S2 Del Mar owner myself, I can attest to both the performance and enjoyable experience of bikes built on the platform, though I do find myself in a somewhat smaller community than LiveWire had likely hoped for. With the backing of its powerful older brother H-D, which retains a controlling stake in the company, LiveWire has enjoyed the relative freedom to cruise for its first few years and focus on motorcycle development and rollouts, with profitability hopefully coming over the horizon in due time.
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