In an interview with Automotive News last week, Toyota Motor Corporation President Akio Toyoda spoke of the aspirations of one of the world's largest automakers in the development of electric vehicles. Let's start with the fact that the company for a long time avoided this topic, preferring to focus on the development of hybrids and cars on hydrogen fuel cells. Recently, Toyota engineers produced a prototype of the electric version of the GT 86, the famous two-seater coupe, and gave a ride on it to the president of the company.
In an interview, the head of Toyota said that after the transfer to electric traction all cars get the opportunity to accelerate equally quickly. The company wishes to allocate electromobiles in a special class of products, avoiding excessive their sooner popularization. While the creation of the first serial electric vehicle of the brand, which will appear on the market no earlier than 2020, four people are working, headed by the president of the corporation, and the rest of the staff is attracted by contractors and Toyota subsidiaries.
The head of the Japanese auto corporation definitely likes the style of Tesla's work. The Toyota division, which is developing an electric vehicle, is trying to borrow the spirit of adventurism inherent in young companies. The president of Toyota with some envy speaks about electromobiles Tesla, asserting that they are very similar to the iPhone in terms of the ability to acquire new functions after the software update. Toyota in the development of new cars now seeks to focus not only on hardware, but also on software.
Now Toyota is forced to spend huge amounts of money (more than $ 9 billion a year) not only to develop new types of vehicles, but also to re-equip existing production facilities, since most of the new models will be manufactured on a new modular TNGA platform, the first-generation Prius, The upcoming version of the Camry and the coupe Lexus LC. In the automotive industry, we have to work on the prospect for 10-20 years, so the current investments will bring a return only in the distant future. Trying to survive in a changing world, Toyota aims to be less conservative, although this quality has for decades provided the auto corporation with an extensive clientele.