Toyota expects a boom in electric vehicle technology by 2026, says analyst

Japan’s Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker, doesn’t see an easy path to widespread electric vehicle adoption. This is what Luiza Aguiar, ESG analyst at XP research, points out, who maintained contact with company executives to discuss the future of the market.

She participated in XP’s Morning Call, this Friday (26), and said that there is a greater focus by Toyota on hybrid cars – which have engines powered by electricity and combustion – in relation to purely electric cars.

Consumer Transition

“It is a bet that has been made for some time,” he said. Luiza Aguiar states that the company sees an important role for hybrids in intermediating consumers until they reach pure electric vehicles.

“According to Toyota, the direct path from combustion vehicles to electric vehicles is not so easy. Toyota believes that there will be greater adoption of hybrids until 100% electric vehicles are reached. They based this on the understanding that there is a slowdown in demand for electric vehicles”, he explained.

Tesla as a negative example

The XP analyst exemplified the case of Tesla, which had a slowdown in demand for electric vehicles, showing in the last balance sheet, for the first time after the pandemic, a much lower delivery in the volume of cars.

“The adoption of electric cars can be achieved with greater traction in countries that are geographically small and have many government incentives. Toyota brought the example of Norway and Sweden. These are indeed places where electric vehicle adoption is quite accelerated,” he commented.

“The speed with which we will migrate to 100% electric cars, in Toyota’s view, should still take some time,” said the program specialist.

Lack of infrastructure

She attributes this mainly to the lack of infrastructure for recharging, the high inventory turnover time of electric vehicles, with longer demands, the charging time and the low autonomy of these cars today.

“In terms of what could accelerate this adoption, Toyota says it expects a boom in electric vehicle technology by 2026, which could accelerate this trend,” he said.

According to her, the technology in question is solid-state batteries, which can increase the autonomy of these electric vehicles.

Fast supply

“To give you an idea, it takes 2 to 12 hours to refuel your electric vehicle. With these solid state batteries it will take up to 15 minutes (to recharge). It’s the ‘cat’s leap’,” he added.

Regarding the largest car market in the world, the USA, Luiza Aguiar said that Toyota had a greater increase in the sale of hybrid cars by 30% last year, surpassing the sale of electric vehicles, which stood at 17%, confirming the The trend is that the adoption of hybrids may be greater than that of electric vehicles at this time.

She added that there is even an incentive there, but more is still needed to improve the recharging infrastructure, for example.

Average ticket still high

“The average ticket for electric vehicles, although it is decreasing, is still higher than that of combustion and hybrid vehicles”, he compared. The analyst also commented that a new electric vehicle takes, on average, 72 days to be sold, while a hybrid takes much less time: 25 days.

Regarding Chinese electric car brands, which entered the Brazilian market with great force, she reported that Toyota, nevertheless, already has a 6.5% market share.

Chinese seek markets

The analyst explained that the Chinese government requires a high level of production from electric vehicle brands. With the drop in the local market, automakers need to sell part of this production to foreign markets.

But the USA and the European Union have closed themselves off from the Chinese electric vehicle market. “So, they needed to look at other markets, such as Brazil and Latin America, which were very open to receiving these vehicles. That’s why they came here and achieved surprisingly strong penetration in a quick time,” he explained.