According to release originally published on Reuters, Toyota is considering a reboot of its electric-car strategy to better compete in a booming market it has been slow to enter, and has halted some work on existing EV projects. If the proposals under review are adopted, they would amount to a shift for Toyota and rewrite the $38-billion EV rollout plan the automaker announced last year to compete with Tesla.
Toyota is currently outlining plans for improvements to its existing EV platform or for a new architecture. In the meantime, Toyota has suspended work on some of the 30 EV projects announced in December, which include the Toyota Compact Cruiser crossover and the battery-electric Crown. The revamp under consideration could slow the rollout of EVs already planned, but it would also give Toyota a chance to compete with a more efficient manufacturing process.
In addition, it would address the criticism by green investors and environmental groups who argue that Toyota has been too slow to embrace EVs.
As part of the review, Toyota is considering a successor to its EV-underpinning technology called e-TNGA, unveiled in 2019. That would allow Toyota to bring down costs. The first EV based on e-TNGA — the bZ4X crossover — was launched earlier this year, although its launch was marred by a recall. Production resumed earlier this month.
