Don’t hold your breath for an electric Scion iQ anytime soon. Toyota executives are certainly good at sticking to the company line. Toyota officials have repeatedly downplayed the potential for pure battery electric vehicles and Yoshimi Inaba is no exception. Inaba-san is the newly-minted President and COO of Toyota Motor North America and Chairman and CEO of Toyota Motor Sales USA. Three weeks after taking over the top spot at Toyota in North America, Inaba-san came to Detroit to speak with a group of local media, including AutoblogGreen.
Responding to the EV question, Inaba-san told the group “we don’t see in the near future electric vehicles being mainstream… We don’t see the major breakthrough in battery technology.”
Inaba-san didn’t rule out introducing an EV if upcoming machines from Nissan, Ford, GM and others take off in the market, but seemed unwilling to commit to losing a lot of money on a battery-powered vehicle.
Inaba stressed that “in terms of technology, we do not believe that we are behind, but acknowledged that Toyota is not ahead either… We believe in hybrid technology,” he said, adding tha hybrids are “more realistic for at least the next four-five years. Read the rest of what Inaba-san had to say on topics like NUMMI and profitability over at Autoblog.
[Source: Autoblog]
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Toyota
New Toyota NA president doesn’t see electric vehicles as mainstream in the near future originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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