Lexus will become the company’s lead for electric vehicles, starting with the new RZ 450e.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nSlow launch<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Toyota\u2019s own skepticism was clearly apparent in its sales numbers. It only launched its first long-range EVs last year \u2014 with sales suffering from an early quality glitch that took the Toyota bZ4X off the market for several months. All told, EVs accounted for barely 1% of its global sales last year and were only expected to reach a third of total volume by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even before Toyoda announced his retirement, he signaled change was afoot, Toyota saying it was expanding development of EV parts and components.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The executive also said Lexus was on a path to become the automaker\u2019s EV lead, going 100% electric by 2035. That\u2019s in line with what other manufacturers are planning, luxury vehicles better able to absorb what remain higher costs for EV production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The brand\u2019s first long-range model, the Lexus RZ 450e, will hit U.S. showrooms this year. As with the bZ4X \u2014 with which it shares key underpinnings \u2014 the Lexus EV was developed as part of a joint venture with Subaru. It\u2019s unclear whether that cost-saving alliance will continue going forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Koji Sato, the Toyota veteran set to take over as CEO in April, plans to adopt an \u201cEV-first mind-set,\u201d he said, reversing course from his EV-skeptical predecessor, outgoing chief executive Akio Toyoda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7,8,5,1164,2648,13,1347,9],"tags":[9781,9780,543,9783,9782],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239045"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239074,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239045\/revisions\/239074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239045"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=239045"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=239045"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=239045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}