CHIBA, Japan, Jan 13 (Reuters) – In an eye-catching bid to show that cars can be clean while appealing to old-school petrolheads, Toyota Motor on Friday showcased zero-emission versions of its 1980s sports range, which still boasts a strong global fan base.
At an industry event for customised cars in Chiba, east of Tokyo, the Japanese automaker unveiled two cars of the AE86 generation, one modified as a battery-electric vehicle and the other as a hydrogen-engine model.
Toyota President Akio Toyoda said remodelling existing cars needed to be explored as an option to achieve a goal of zero carbon emissions by 2050. In Japan, only one in about 20 cars on the road are new, and older ones are mainly powered at least partly by gasoline.
“It’s important to leave a choice for cars that are already loved or owned by someone,” Toyoda, a self-confessed car-lover and race-car driver, said at the event.
A relative newcomer to the mass EV market, Toyota has plans to invest $70 billion to electrify its vehicles and produce more batteries, and aims to sell at least 3.5 million battery electric models (BEVs) in 2030.
The world’s top automakers are planning to spend nearly $1.2 trillion through 2030 to develop and produce millions of electric vehicles, along with the batteries and raw materials to support that production, according to a Reuters analysis of public data and projections released by those companies.
The EV investment figure, which has not previously been published, dwarfs previous investment estimates by Reuters and is more than twice the most recent calculation published just a year ago.
Automakers have forecast plans to build 54 million battery electric vehicles in 2030, representing more than 50% of total vehicle production, according to the analysis.
To support that unprecedented level of EVs, carmakers and their battery partners are planning to install 5.8 terawatt-hours of battery production capacity by 2030, according to data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence and the manufacturers.
Source: Reuters
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