Toyota follows the wave of the rest of the sector and reduces its production targets for electric cars

Toyota has cut its global electric car production target by a third through 2026, Japanese media reported on Friday. Nikkei quoted by EP. Thus, the Japanese company plans to manufacture one million vehicles of this type over the next two years and becomes the latest car manufacturer to modify its production and sales targets for electric vehicles. Earlier this week, the Swedish Volvo indicated that it is giving up on meeting its goal of only selling electric cars in 2030. Instead, by then, it expects between 90% and 100% of its deliveries to be electrified cars, including plug-in hybrids in the equation, a type of vehicle that remains combustion unless it is always charged and used electrically. Another company that has also changed its electric target in recent months is Mercedes-Benz, which aims for half of its sales to be electrified cars in 2030, when it had initially set that goal for 2025.

For its part, Toyota’s great global competitor, the group Volkswagen is in a serious crisis because its sales have plummeted and it has fallen behind in the electric vehicle battle. The company is even considering closing two factories in Germany, something unprecedented in the history of the German car industry. As a shock measure to try to stimulate sales, the German government announced this week a package of aid that includes the possibility for companies to deduct up to 40% of the value of an electric car.

In parallel to Toyota’s announcement, the Japanese government will allocate 2.4 billion dollars, about 2.164 billion euros at the current exchange rate, to subsidize the value chain line of battery production in the country. The measure, which plans to support up to 12 storage battery projects and components, materials and production equipment, according to what the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Ken Saito, said on Friday, will serve to increase the country’s battery production capacity by 50%, up to 120 GWh. This, for comparison, would be three times the initial capacity that Volkswagen’s battery plant in Sagunto, Valencia, will have, although the German company indicated that it could increase this capacity up to 60 GWh.

Toyota has also reported that the Japanese government has approved its project to produce new-generation batteries, the so-called solid-state batteries. The company says that production is scheduled to begin in 2026. This technology, which companies around the world are working on, with projects with really promising results such as that of the American company Factorial or the Chinese company WeLion, promises to increase the autonomy of electric vehicles, reduce the price of batteries and increase their useful life. It would be a decisive change, according to several sources in the sector. Spain, for its part, has the Basquevolt project, which has received aid from the Perte for the Electric and Connected Vehicle, which is developing a solid-state battery that it plans to mass produce in car size from 2028.