Toyota continues to be persevering with its previous methods of greenwashing and opposing electrical automobiles, regardless of a change in CEO earlier this yr from anti-EV stalwart Akio Toyoda to former Lexus chief Koji Sato, who had promised a extra EV-friendly method.
Toyota has an extended historical past of opposing electrical automobiles, each by means of lobbying and disinformation in its advertising. The corporate has constantly been probably the most obstructive world automaker on the subject of electrification and among the many slowest to scale up its EV efforts.
Most of this opposition got here underneath the earlier CEO, Akio Toyoda. However earlier this yr, Toyota appeared to lastly acknowledge that these efforts have been unproductive and changed Toyoda with new CEO Koji Sato, citing Toyoda’s particular failure to adapt to the electrical automobile motion.
This gave some hope for Toyota, whose earlier path threatened not simply Toyota itself however doubtlessly the complete Japanese economic system, given its significance as the biggest firm within the nation. That path has already seen it getting squeezed out of the world’s largest auto market resulting from an absence of EVs to promote.
Many organizations known as for Toyota to alter its path when Sato got here into management. And there was some motion. Sato appears to be making some strikes to extend EV manufacturing, however then once more, the corporate reduce its already pathetic near-term EV gross sales forecast by 40% earlier this month. And simply final month, Toyota did make an unlimited funding into its deliberate US battery plant – $8 billion is nothing to scoff at.
However the higher a part of a yr after Sato’s appointment, Toyota continues to be as much as its standard advertising methods, making an attempt to confuse the general public into considering its gasoline guzzlers make it a pacesetter in inexperienced know-how.
Toyota does this by means of its advertising campaigns and materials, which confuse typical hybrids – which run 100% on gasoline and achieve no vitality from some other nonfossil, nonpolluting supply – with electrical automobiles, which may run on nonfossil sources. It additionally focuses on unrealistic distant-future options, which appear to exist solely to push timelines again.
Public Citizen not too long ago confronted Toyota on the LA Auto Present encouraging the corporate to affect. We talked to East Peterson-Trujillo, Public Citizen’s Clear Automobiles Campaigner, about what Toyota and Sato have been as much as within the final yr, they usually identified a number of the greenwashing Toyota has nonetheless been as much as.
For instance, Toyota has modified its badging to say “HEV” rather than “hybrid” because it has stated prior to now.
To be clear, hybrids aren’t EVs. Whereas it’s trade/scientific parlance to check with hybrids on this manner (together with FCEV for gasoline cell, PHEV for plug-in hybrid, and BEV for battery electrical automobile), it isn’t the way in which the general public refers to them, and Toyota is aware of this and has made the change to cowl up its incapability to make EVs. The general public thinks that “EV” means electrical automobile, particularly battery-electric automobile, and the standard hybrids that make up a majority of Toyota’s “electrified” automobile gross sales aren’t electrical in any respect.
And that brings up one other drawback. Toyota’s intensive use of the phrase “electrified” is one other deceptive declare it makes use of to confuse customers. This phrase is utilized by different automakers as properly, however Toyota has crafted a whole advertising marketing campaign round it – which it launched in September, properly after the change in CEO.
The advertising marketing campaign known as “electrified diversified,” and it’s Toyota’s try and push automobiles which can be solely powered by fossil fuels as if they’re an essential a part of an automaker’s technique towards carbon neutrality.
However, once more, hybrid automobiles just like the (non-plug-in) Prius run solely on gasoline. There may be zero vitality that enters the automobile system that’s not put there by restricted and polluting fossil fuels, of the sort that contributes to thousands and thousands of deaths globally per yr. You can’t energy a Prius on carbon-neutral vitality, and a Prius will not be zero-emission.
Toyota additionally has one other marketing campaign, “Past Zero,” which explicitly needs to “shift the dialog” from advocating for EVs to gas-guzzling hybrids as an alternative.
Huge image, the “Past Zero” marketing campaign goals to shift the dialog about electrification from the auto trade’s slender deal with battery-electric automobiles (BEVs) to a broader perspective that encompasses Toyota’s extra formidable — and a few would say extra practical — portfolio method to transitioning away from inner combustion engines. That features hybrid EVs, plug-in hybrid EVs, gasoline cell EVs and battery EVs.
-Toyota’s advertising BS
We’re undecided how going to a extra polluting resolution, hybrids, is someway “past “zero – so chalk that one as much as Toyota mendacity about how science works as soon as once more, mendacity as its chief scientist does very often.
The worst half is that Toyota’s BS is spreading. Ram not too long ago described its plug-in hybrid as an “limitless vary” EV, echoing Toyota’s unlawful “self-charging hybrid” declare. And we additionally seen on the LA Auto Present that Kia was utilizing “HEV” badging on its new gas-powered hybrid Sorento, which is a disgrace provided that Kia truly has some nice EV choices, in contrast to Toyota.
Fortunately, Toyota has confronted strain from shareholders to enhance its enterprise within the face of local weather change and a shifting automotive trade, however thus far has not relented to this strain and is constant on its previous path. It has additionally confronted boycotts, and Toyota automobiles are the model most probably to be traded in when individuals purchase an EV.
Whereas in 2022 Toyoda was confirmed as CEO with over 95% of the vote, that vote share dropped to 85% when he was reelected as chair of the board in 2023. Each are excessive numbers, however that’s a big change in assist over the course of the yr, and it’s fairly uncommon for shareholders to vote in opposition to the board’s advice in nearly any case.
We’d like to see Toyota cease pushing its anti-environment agenda by means of advertising – and we expect that it nonetheless has a possibility to take action with the brand new CEO – however the higher a part of a yr in, it merely hasn’t made practically sufficient progress.
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