Toyota Announces Ambitious Environmental Targets

Toyota announced a new environmental plan this week, revealing its goals to be achieved in the next 35 years and addressing complex issues such as climate change, resource depletion, water shortages and the degradation of biodiversity.

The Japanese automaker explained that it aims to sell over 30,000 fuel cell cars by around 2020, and the company added that it expects to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 by using renewable energy and hydrogen-based production methods. It also promises to expand various recycling measures, including developing ways to build vehicles from recycled ones.

In a statement this week, Toyota also said that it will begin selling fuel cell buses in small numbers by early 2017 and will sell “100 fuel cell buses ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo.” The company highlighted its ambitious plans to achieve sales of 1.5 million hybrids annually and 15 million hybrids cumulatively over the next five years.

When the company was asked why it has remained so cautious when it comes to electric vehicles, Toyota explained its position that EVs take too long to recharge, despite battery innovations that have made them smaller, thereby restricting them to short-range travel. The automaker’s chairman, Takeshi Uchiyamada, who is known as the “father of the Prius,” said that the company is taking environmental concerns seriously because it has always tried to contribute to a better society.

“We have the same principles since our founding,” he said, showing a photo of Sakichi Toyoda, the Toyota founder’s father, who invented a textile loom in 1891. “That is Toyota’s DNA.”

Certainly, the recent Volkswagen scandal has made all automakers more cautious regarding their vehicle emissions, and Toyota’s environmental plans are being outlined following this crisis.

“The beautiful, diverse earth is being lost at a speed where the pace of past innovations is not keeping up,” said Uchiyamada. “In order to be there for the global environment, we believe it is important to take up new challenges with a vision for 20 and 30 years ahead.”

Toyota also said that it will launch a new series of 14 engines, which could “achieve top-level thermal efficiency and fuel efficiency improvement of more than 10 percent (JCo8 cycle) over current models.” Additionally, Reuters reported that the automaker declared that its new Prius hybrid will be over a fifth more fuel-efficient than its predecessor. Toyota’s sales of hybrid cars rose impressively from less than 16,000 units per year in 2001 to a peak of approximately 237,000 in 2012. However, since that time, the numbers have dropped, and reports suggest that they could fall below 200,000 this year for the first time since 2011.

Will Toyota’s environmental push help the automaker to gain more of the alternative-fuel car space in the coming period, or is the company failing to meet the expectations for innovation in this highly competitive sector? For auto dealers, it’s interesting to watch as these changes develop, to understand the transformations in the popularity of various alternative vehicle types to help keep their dealership as current and relevant as possible for their customer base.