Toyota Is Losing the Electric Car Race, So It Pretends Hybrids Are Better

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There are at least 12 car companies currently selling an all-electric vehicle in the United States, and Toyota isnโ€™t one of them. Despite admitting recently that the Tesla Model 3 alone is responsible for half of Toyotaโ€™s customer defections in North Americaย โ€” as Prius drivers transition to all-electric โ€” the company has been an outspoken laggard in the race toย electrification.

Now, the company is using questionable logic to attempt to justify its inaction onย electrification, claiming that its limited battery capacityย better serves the planet by producingย gasoline-electricย hybrids.ย 

For years, Toyota leadership has shunned investment in all-electric cars, laying out a more conservative strategy to โ€œelectrifyโ€ its fleet โ€” essentially doubling down on hybrids and plug-in hybrids โ€” as a bridge to a future generation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. As Tesla, Nissan, and GM have led the technological shift to fully battery electric vehicles, Toyota has publicly bashed the prospects of all-electric fleets. (See, for instance, the swipe the company took at plug-in vehicles in this recent Toyota Corolla Hybrid commercial.)

Last week, at the Geneva Auto Show, a Toyota executive provided a curious explanation for the companyโ€™s refusal to launch a single battery electric vehicle. As Car and Driver reported, Toyota claims that it is limited by battery production capacityย and that โ€œToyota is able to produce enough batteries for 28,000 electric vehicles each year โ€” or for 1.5 million hybridย cars.โ€

In other words, because Toyota has neglected to invest in battery production, it can only produce enough batteries for a trivial number of all-electricย vehicles.

Due to this self-inflicted capacity shortage, the company is forced to choose between manufacturing 1.5 million hybrids or 28,000 electric cars. Using what Car and Driver called โ€œfuzzy math,โ€ the company tried to justify the strategy to forgo electric vehicles (EVs) on environmentalย grounds.

As Toyota explained it, โ€œselling 1.5 million hybrid cars reduces carbon emissions by a third more than selling 28,000 EVs.โ€

Toyota’s Conservative Strategy Twisted to Bash Electricย Cars

Toyota’s claims wereย twisted into a remarkably irresponsible headline in PCMag.com and Mashable, which claimed โ€œToyota says selling fully electric vehicles is lessย eco-friendly.โ€ย 

However, the company’s claim only pertains to Toyotaโ€™s business model, which is limited by the companyโ€™s own decisions not to invest in battery technology. It also accepts that the company cannot procure batteries elsewhere in the near term, as some other carmakers are doing. (For instance, Hyundai and GM both contract with LG for battery packs for the new Kona Electric and the Chevy Bolt,ย respectively.)

The โ€œfuzzy mathโ€ that justifies Toyotaโ€™s anti-EV strategy on environmental grounds also relies on a few very questionableย assumptions.

Though Toyota didnโ€™t provide details, the calculation seems to assume that for every hybrid sold, a fully gasoline-powered car would be taken off the road. In reality, many Toyota hybrid buyers are replacing a Toyota hybrid. And, based on Toyotaโ€™s own revelation that they are losing Prius drivers to Tesla, it stands to reason that many Toyota hybrid drivers would jump at the opportunity to transition to an all-electricย Toyota.

Ultimately, Toyota’s strategic decision to invest in gasoline-electric hybrids and bet on fuel cells in the long term is the reason that itย isn’t currently producing any electric cars. The once-innovativeย company that mainstreamed hybrid-electric technology is now a global laggard in electrification, and is using dubiousย logic to justify itsย gas-powered fleet on environmentalย grounds.

By no reasonable measure is Toyota’s fleet more eco-friendly without a single all-electric model. Electric cars are cleaner and greener from cradle-to-grave, including battery production, and regardless of where they charge.ย 

Main image:ย A Toyotaย Prius as the gas station. Credit: Listener42,ย CC BYย 2.0

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Ben Jervey is a Senior Fellow for DeSmog and directs the KochvsClean.com project. He is a freelance writer, editor, and researcher, specializing in climate change and energy systems and policy. Ben is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. He was the original Environment Editor for GOOD Magazine, and wrote a longstanding weekly column titled โ€œThe New Ideal: Building the clean energy economy of the 21st Century and avoiding the worst fates of climate change.โ€ He has also contributed regularly to National Geographic News, Grist, and OnEarth Magazine. He has published three booksโ€”on eco-friendly living in New York City, an Energy 101 primer, and, most recently, โ€œThe Electric Battery: Charging Forward to a Low Carbon Future.โ€ He graduated with a BA in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College, and earned a Masterโ€™s in Energy Regulation and Law at Vermont Law School. A bicycle enthusiast, Ben has ridden across the United States and through much ofย Europe.

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