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So far, we learned that Japan’s OEMs have fallen behind their overseas EV competitors. None of them rank in the top 10.
Toyota’s management is finally coming to terms with EVs and seems dedicated to closing the gap through massive investments into new platforms and battery technology. Toyota wants to sell 3.5 million EVs by 2030. What’s interesting to see is that it pursues multiple avenues to hit that goal.
The first approach is a collaboration with BYD started in 2020 before the Chinese rose to become the world’s largest EV manufacturer. The joint venture will release two models based on Toyota’s Beyond Zero platform in China this year.
The second approach is even bolder. Back in Japan near Mt. Fuji, Toyota has gathered key staff in a new organization called the “BEV Factory”. Its primary goal: Develop and manufacture a 1000+ km range electric vehicle.
But the task at hand is bigger than that...
The BEV Factory is Toyota’s shot at developing a dedicated platform for battery-electric vehicles. This is one of the company’s most ambitious R&D and manufacturing initiatives in recent years. It’s not only about developing high-performance batteries. The BEV team will need to question some of the very methods that have made Toyota so successful.
The ramp-up of EV production will fundamentally change Toyota’s collaboration with its suppliers. With the BEV Factory, Toyota plans to introduce giga casting, first pioneered by Tesla, replacing dozens of parts that were welded together previously. Toyota aims to reduce the number of parts required in future EVs by 50%.
And this is not all...
Besides giga casting, Toyota plans to introduce “self-propelling production technology”, in other words cars under assembly will move to the next stage of production on their own.
By streamlining production, Toyota hopes to cut the investment required to build EV plants by as much as 50%. On the flip side: Even leaner production will bring about massive implications for automotive suppliers.
Future cars are software-defined vehicles. Essentially, cars are becoming computers on wheels. This is why the BEV Factory cooperates closely with its IT group company Woven by Toyota to develop an entirely new vehicle operating system. Over-the-air (OTA) updates are just one of the capabilities that Toyota needs to improve to close the gap to competitors in the EV and autonomous driving era.
Why hasn’t Toyota gone all in to EVs so far? Limits to the range of lithium-ion batteries and their charging speed are part of the issues. This is what Toyota wants to change by developing the next generation of high-performance batteries.
The real breakthrough is expected with solid-state batteries.
Stay tuned as we’ll take a close look at Toyota’s battery roadmap in Part 4.
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