car industry
Japanese car manufacturer Toyota sold 7.2 percent more cars last year, making it the first car brand to exceed the 10 million car mark. Only 1 percent of those cars were fully electric.
Due to all the attention for electric cars and the conflict between Tesla and BYD, the Japanese car manufacturer Toyota is somewhat overshadowed. Toyota is not exactly a fan of fully electric driving. It targets hydrogen and hybrid electric vehicles and not fully electric cars. In addition, it is also hindered by increasing competition in its own backyard: cheap Chinese car makers. Japan is much closer to China than Europe.
Yet this apparently does not bother. On the contrary: Toyota strengthened its position as the world’s largest car manufacturer last financial year (ending on March 31). In total, the Japanese car manufacturer, which also has luxury brand Lexus, sold 10.3 million cars, an increase of 7.2 percent compared to the 9.6 million cars in the previous financial year. It is the first car brand to sell more than 10 million cars per year. For the entire Toyota group (including Daihatsu and Hino), this concerns 11.1 million cars, compared to 10.6 million cars the year before.
About a third of Toyota’s cars sold have an electric drive, such as a plug-in hybrid. The number of pure electric vehicles is very limited: last financial year, Toyota sold only 111,000 fully electric cars. This makes Toyota appear to be a mirror image of Tesla and BYD, which are suffering from stagnant sales of electric cars. Customers still find these cars too expensive or find the distance you can drive with a battery too limited. They then opt for well-priced conventional cars, with or without hybrids, such as those from Toyota.
