Toyota Motor Corp said on Wednesday it will unveil two new electric vehicles that will go on sale next year in the United States amid a growing push by the Biden administration to cut vehicle emissions, sending the Japanese automaker’s shares soaring.
The company also said it expects that 40 per cent of its US sales by 2025 will be hybrid vehicles or electric vehicles, rising to 70 per cent by 2030. One of the new EVs next year will be a sport-utility vehicle and Toyota will also unveil a new plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Toyota said in 2017 it would market more than 10 electric vehicles globally in the early 2020s.
The new vehicles for the US market are “the first of many,” Bob Carter, executive vice president of sales for Toyota Motor North America.
“Electrification is the future of this industry. There is no doubt about that,” Carter said. “The only debate we have is that rate of change.”
Toyota forecasts by 2025 that industry sales will be 7 per cent electric vehicles rising to around 15 per cent to 18 per cent in 2030.
In 2020, Toyota sold 337,000 hybrid vehicles in the United States, accounting for 16 per cent of US sales, and hybrids will grow to more than 20 per cent this year as it adds more hybrid versions.
Toyota shares rose more than 5 per cent on the news in New York trading.
