Toyota Aims to Sell Better Driving Range, Quick-charging Electric Cars in 2022

Toyota Motor Corp, a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer, aims to begin selling an electric car powered by a latest type of battery that significantly improves the driving range and lessens the charging time, aiming to begin sales in 2022, according to a report.

Normally, current electric vehicles, which use lithium-ion batteries, have a range of just 300-400 kilometers or 185-250 miles. They need 20 to 30 minutes to recharge even using fast chargers.

Toyota’s new electric car, to be built on all-new platform, will use all-solid-state-batteries, which can store more energy and can recharge faster than lithium-ion batteries. Japan’s top automaker would be eliminating the two key shortcomings associated with EVs today.

According to a report, Toyota has planned to sell the new model in Japan as early as 2022.

The automaker company is looking to close the gap with EV leaders such as Nissan Motor Co and Tesla Inc as battery-powered cars attain traction around the world as a feasible emission-free alternative to conventional cars.

Whether Toyota will be able to surpass its rivals remains to be seen, however, as mass production needs a far more rigorous level of quality control and steadiness.

“There’s a pretty long distance between the lab bench and manufacturing,” said CLSA auto analyst Christopher Richter, “2022 is ages away, and a lot can change in the meantime.” How fast the new EVs will catch on would also depend on battery costs.

Toyota, which had long flaunted hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles and plug-in hybrids as the most sensible technology to make cars greener, it said last year it wanted to add long-range electric vehicles to its lineup as battery-powered cars, and set up new in-house unit, headed by President Aiko Toyoda, to develop and sell EVs.

The company is reportedly planning to start mass-producing EVs in China, the world’s biggest auto market, as early as in 2019, although that model would be based on the existing C-HR sport utility vehicle and use lithium-ion batteries.

On the other hand, other automakers such as BMW are also working on creating all-solid-state batteries, looking to do mass production in the next 10 years.

Compared to lithium-ion batteries, which are currently on the market, solid-state batteries are safer because they use solid electrolytes rather than liquid ones.

Meanwhile, by 3:00 PM GMT+9, Toyota Motor Corp traded  0.46%, or 28, to JPY 6,107. It opened in JPY 6,092, with a session high of JPY 6,178 and a session low of JPY 6,089. Its market capitalization was 19.93 trillion, with a P/E ratio of 10.2 and a dividend yield of 3.44%.

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