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[SINGAPORE] Facing fierce regional competition from Chinese carmakers, Japanese automotive giant Toyota is banking on a strategy of continuing to offer combustion engine cars alongside ramped-up electric vehicle (EV) launches.

Offering this range allows the company to adapt to each of its markets, said Toyota Motor Asia vice-president Preston Tan in an interview with The Business Times.

“What we are seeing here is the aggressiveness of Chinese (carmakers)… Previously, we thought South Korean carmakers were our so-called competitors, but the Chinese are more aggressive than them.”

In its “multi-pathway” strategy formally announced at the end of 2022, Toyota will sell cars with internal combustion engines, including petrol and diesel; petrol-electric hybrids; plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs); fully electric cars; and, in the future, hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. The company’s brands include its namesake and Lexus.

EVs have been growing in popularity since the late 2010s, but most Japanese carmakers, including Toyota, have been slow to pivot – in contrast to many European and Chinese brands that have made EVs a focal point of their sales strategies.

Toyota lags in the Asia-Pacific EV space, with only one Toyota model for the region, the bZ4X.

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But it intends to introduce more EV models to Apac “soon”, said Tan. As the move is still being planned, he declined to reveal specifics of the models or timeline.

Electric dream

Globally, Toyota has confirmed the launch of three new EV models this year. All sport utility vehicles, they are an updated version of the bZ4X, the Urban Cruiser, and the C-HR+. In 2026, it will launch three more as-yet-unnamed models.

Media reports say that the Urban Cruiser will be launched in India this year, but this has not been confirmed for any other Apac markets.

Within the region, Toyota hopes to grow its EV share by introducing more models. Yet, even as it presents new EVs, the company does not expect them to become dominant – in either its own strategy or the global car market.

Toyota’s new Urban Cruiser EV will be launched in India this year, but this has not been confirmed for other Apac markets. PHOTO: TOYOTA

In 2024, Toyota’s global EV sales rose by more than a third year on year, to almost 140,000 units. Still, this was less than 2 per cent of the company’s total worldwide sales of 10.8 million vehicles.

Toyota’s goal is to have 15 EV models by 2027, with one million EVs produced annually.

However, company chairman Akio Toyoda said last year that he expected battery EVs to form 30 per cent of the global car market at most.

Hybrid theory

In Apac, China carmakers such as BYD, Geely, Great Wall Motor and XPeng have chiefly focused on EVs and have yet to introduce hybrid or PHEV models across all markets.

Toyota’s approach is far more varied. While conventional cars still make up most of the company’s regional sales, Tan sees hybrids as a segment with high potential.

“Hybrid EVs will continue to play an important role in Toyota’s electrification journey – particularly in Asia, where infrastructure and market readiness vary widely,” he said.

An advantage of hybrids is that they do not need charging infrastructure, unlike EVs and PHEVs, he added.

Hybrids have combustion engines and run on petrol, but also recycle kinetic energy from braking or slowing down, storing it in batteries. They are therefore more efficient than conventional cars, and do not need to be charged externally.

In 2024, around 15 per cent of the 955,000 or so Toyota cars sold in Apac were hybrids.

Tan did not state future targets, but noted that regional markets have differing rules and consumer preferences, and thus will experience different hybrid sales shares and growth.

Currently, hybrids account for 20 to 70 per cent of Toyota’s sales in the various regional markets.

In markets with a focus on low-cost cars and generous petrol subsidies, like Indonesia, hybrids form a smaller share of sales, and conventional cars, a larger share. It is the opposite for markets with anti-pollution rules, such as Singapore, where the share is almost 100 per cent.

But this may change as countries including Indonesia are moving towards carbon neutrality and electrification, Tan said.

Globally, 2024 seemed to vindicate Toyota’s diversified strategy. Hybrid sales for its Toyota and Lexus brands increased 21 per cent year on year to 4.1 million units, a record for the company.

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