- toyota is pushing up its planned ev rollout by five years.
- global demand for electric cars is out-pacing toyota's predictions, forcing the company to act.
- six new toyota ev models will begin appearing in 2020, starting in china.
toyota's ambitious plans to roll out a family of new electric vehicles by 2025, which it initially announced two years ago, are being moved up. accelerating global demand for evs have pushed the automaker toward putting the first of these electric vehicles on sale in 2020. at an event highlighting toyota's newly adjusted long-term electric-vehicle plans, the automaker promised it is working on six new evs, as well as a plan for further popularizing battery-electric cars ahead of their rollout.
about that rollout . . .
at home in japan and in other overseas markets, toyota is whetting the public's appetite for full-electric transportation with a bevy of scooters and mobility devices in the near term. there also will be microcars like the wacky three-wheeled i-road and a tiny smart-car-like hatchback.
in addition to these oddball scooters, real cars are in the works too. other global markets such as the u.s., europe, and china will start to see those six electric cars toyota is promising by 2020. they'll likely appear in china first before being sent to the u.s. and elsewhere later.
toyota's new ev lineup
one of the six new electrics is, predictably, the compact crossover toyota and subaru recently announced that they'll jointly develop. the platform that will sit beneath that vehicle will be adapted for the other five evs toyota outlined, and toyota is calling the architecture "e-tnga" in a reference to the tnga modular architecture slowly propagating throughout its mainstream gas- and hybrid-powered car and suv lineup.
according to toyota, e-tnga will accommodate an electric motor in front (for front-wheel drive), in the rear (for rear-wheel drive), or in both locations (all-wheel drive). the positioning of the front seats and battery will be fixed, but the platform's wheelbase will be flexible to allow for different vehicle sizes. that is how e-tnga will be manipulated in order to underpin the other five, differently sized evs toyota has in store beyond the compact crossover shared with subaru. there also will be a small car (to be co-developed with suzuki and daihatsu), as well as another smallish crossover (which is hinted to be an electric version of the c-hr crossover), a compact sedan, a minivan, and a mid-size suv.
