Toyota Motor Company has introduced its battery electric vehicle (EV) strategy including the launch of 16 Toyota and Lexus brand models.
The company announced plans to roll out 30 EV models and forecasts sales of 3.5 million EVs globally by 2030. The Lexus brand will aim to account for 100% of the total EV sales in Europe, North America and China by 2030.
The announcement also included the launch of Toyota’s bZ series of vehicles, a line up of dedicated battery EVs. Toyota developed a dedicated platform for the bZ series jointly with Subaru. Next year, the first model of this line, the bZ3X, will begin production at Toyota’s Motomachi plant.
Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, said that EVs can be divided into two categories: carbon-reducing vehicles and carbon-neutral vehicles. Any EV or other model that uses or produces energy that is not clean would fall into the former category, while those vehicles that run on clean energy to produce and run would fall into the latter.
“We will not only add battery EV options to existing vehicle models but will also offer a full lineup of reasonably priced mass-production models, such as the bZ series, to meet the needs of all kinds of customers,” Toyoda said.
The Lexus brand has introduced more than 30 models of engine-only vehicles, hybrid EVs and plug-in EVs in more than 90 countries.
“Furthermore, we will expand the options for carbon-neutral vehicles by offering a full lineup of battery EVs,” Toyoda said.