Big lie about Toyota saying goodbye to electric cars
A mistaken belief commonly repeated by EV sceptics online is that the world’s biggest automaker — Toyota — has given up on battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and is pushing for hydrogen car adoption instead.
Although Toyota was once very vocal about EVs not being a feasible alternative to petrol and diesel cars, the company has changed its tune in recent years.
Former Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda famously called EVs “overhyped” and argued that their adoption would require significant electricity infrastructure expansion.
The world’s biggest automaker lobbied aggressively against regulations, tax cuts, and consumer incentives advancing the adoption of EVs for several years.
It was ranked as the worst automaker on climate lobbying globally by InfluenceMap in 2024. Its Japanese counterparts — Honda and Mazda — were second and third worst.
In fact, Toyota previously ranked third among all companies lobbying against EVs, including Big Oil companies.
The company historically advocated for using hydrogen instead of electric batteries to run the cars of the future.
A strong political bias motivated that view, which is largely ignored in debates over which technology is better.
Toyota’s optimism over hydrogen stems largely from the needs of its home country — Japan.
Getting the world onboard with hydrogen has less to do with reducing carbon emissions and more with improving Japan’s energy independence and potentially its economic power.
The country has no crude oil or natural gas resources, so it relies heavily on imports for running cars and electricity generation. About 94% of the country’s energy needs are currently met by imports.
Japan’s obsession with hydrogen comes from discoveries of vast deposits of undersea methane hydrate, also called “fire ice”.
This resource can be used to manufacture “grey” or “blue” hydrogen by splitting carbon from methane, creating hydrogen as a byproduct.
This is the most common form of hydrogen production, but it has a big problem — it still generates carbon emissions.
Extracting fire ice is also currently not commercially viable.
However, if sufficient demand is generated worldwide, substantial investment could create a viable hydrogen economy — with Japan leading the way.
Hydrogen’s substantial shortcomings
However, Toyota’s hydrogen lobbying has not convinced climate activists or economists that using hydrogen instead of batteries in passenger vehicles is feasible — for a myriad of reasons.
Proponents of hydrogen often mention that it is the most abundant element in the universe but fail to note how difficult it is to produce on Earth.
The only way to manufacture environmentally friendly “green hydrogen” is through electrolysis, which itself demands significant amounts of energy.
The most efficient electrolysis system could theoretically produce one kilogram of green hydrogen using 33.33kWh of electricity. One kilogram could only supply the equivalent of 33.33kWh of energy, meaning roughly 15% of the electricity used is wasted.
In real-world scenarios, however, system inefficiencies increase the energy consumption to about 48kWh per kg. That means around 30% of the electricity used is wasted.
EV batteries also have charging inefficiencies, but these are significantly lower at 12% to 15%, in severe cases.
Electrolysis also requires about 9 litres of water to produce one kilogram of hydrogen.
Building hydrogen stations with the ability to self-generate and store green hydrogen would require substantial infrastructure development and electricity grid upgrades.
EV sales rising rapidly — while hydrogen cars falter
While EV sales growth has slowed, it is important to emphasise that year-on-year sales are still increasing.
According to the International Energy Association (IEA), global EV sales grew by 35% — or 3.5 million additional units — from 2022 to 2023.
With total sales of 14 million, there are an estimated 40 million EVs on the world’s roads, six times more than five years go.
In stark contrast, hydrogen vehicle sales fell by over 30% in 2023 — plummeting from 20,704 to 14,451.
The IEA estimates the total number of hydrogen cars sold to date to be around 86,000.
The fact of the matter is that EVs are already a viable means of transport for millions of people, while hydrogen cars are as rare as hen’s teeth.
Toyota’s flagship Mirai hydrogen car is performing so poorly that the company practically pays people to get one by providing free hydrogen for six years.
That is, if buyers can find a hydrogen station in the first place.
Aside from being substantially more expensive to produce and run than EVs, refilling a hydrogen car is becoming increasingly difficult.
Hydrogen station availability has waned in the past few years while EV stations have expanded rapidly.
Climate futurist and advisor Michael Barnard’s research showed that 32 hydrogen stations were closed across the Germany UK, US, and Denmark from October 2022 to February 2024.
Plans for a further 62 stations in Denmark and the US were scrapped, while a further 139 had run empty at the time of Barnard’s analysis.
There were an estimated 921 hydrogen stations in the world by the end of 2023, compared with 2.7 million public EV charging stations.
Almost 1,100 new public EV charging stations were added in the US in just the second half of 2023.
Toyota turns a corner
Those who frequently punt Toyota’s hydrogen-first strategy over EVs as the optimal path ignore three major recent developments.
Firstly, the company has announced combined spending of roughly ¥7 trillion (R850.93 billion) in research and development on BEVs over the past four years.
Secondly, staunch anti-EV combatant Akio Toyoda stepped down as president and CEO on 1 April 2023 and was replaced by the company’s former chief branding officer, Koji Sato.
Toyoda said his resignation was because the company needed to enter a “new chapter”.
He acknowledged although his leadership was key to the company’s previous achievements, it was no longer enough.
Sato has punted Toyota’s BEV-first mindset on multiple occasions in the roughly year and a half at the helm.
Thirdly, the company has laid out a battery technology development and launch roadmap.
It includes rolling out an EV with over 800km range on a single charge at a 20% lower cost than Toyota’s current sole EV — the bZ4X — which can only achieve up to 500km per recharge.
Toyota has also teased a solid-state battery, believed to be the next big step-change for EVs. It will be capable of covering 1,200km on a single charge with just a 10-minute top-up.
Big battery improvements on the horizon
Toyota’s revised view is largely aligned with climate experts and other carmakers — BEVs will become the main type of passenger car, replacing petrol and diesel models.
If its ambition comes to fruition, the two biggest consumer criticisms against the viability of EVs — short range and long charging times — all but disappear.
The odds of BEVs seeing true mass adoption are further boosted by Toyota’s biggest rival — Volkswagen — spending a whopping $131 billion (R2.38) on electrification and digitising its product line up to 2028.
It recently announced it would start mass-producing solid-state batteries for EVs in partnership with QuantumScape.
The batteries are likely to increase range, reduce charging times, and even improve EV acceleration, which already puts ICE vehicles to shame.
The commitment to manufacture around 40GWh of batteries is enough for roughly half a million cars. If the batteries prove themselves in the real world, the total output could be doubled.
Chinese electric car giant BYD is also currently developing its second-generation Blade battery, which it claims will boast as much as 190kWh density with up to 1,000km range in cars the same size as its current models.
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