Automakers Are Adding Electric Vehicles to Lineups – Consumer Reports

Toyota announced its latest electrification goalposts in December 2021, promising to build 3.5 million battery-only electric vehicles per year, worldwide, by 2030, backed by $70 billion in investments. The effort would bring 30 new models—about a quarter of them battery electric vehicles—globally across the Toyota and Lexus brands. In a video presentation broadcast from Tokyo, Akio Toyoda, president of the Toyota Motor Corporation, showed off about a dozen electric concept vehicles—including cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs—that could reach production in the coming years.

Although Toyota hasn’t gone into much detail yet regarding most of its coming EV models, company executives have been clear in that they consider cars powered purely by batteries as only part of the company’s future lineup, in stark contrast to other manufacturers that have indicated they’re all in on pure EVs.

The automaker did, however, promise that Lexus, Toyota’s luxury brand, would be 100 percent electric by the end of the decade in the U.S. Koji Sato, president and chief branding officer of Lexus International, said at the presentation that the first Lexus EVs would accelerate quickly and have well over 400 miles of range. The brand kicked off this initiative with the 2023 RZ 450e SUV, the first Lexus EV. Sato also said there were even plans afoot for an electric Lexus sports car. In August 2022, it announced a $2.5 billion investment in a new battery plant to be built in North Carolina to support its hybrids and EVs.

The Toyota bZ4X electric SUV, the companion EV to the Subaru Solterra, is the first model of this EV wave to reach the market. These SUVs were jointly developed by the two automakers using a common platform, e-TNGA. Think Toyota electric components plus Subaru’s rich history with all-wheel-drive systems, and you get the picture. Toyota says the bZ4X will fall under its Toyota bZ—“beyond zero”—brand umbrella, a name that’s a reference to zero emissions. There are six other bZ models to be introduced by 2025.