Toyota lobbies US government in its increasingly delusional effort to slow down electric vehicles

Toyota is currently lobbying the US government asking them to slow their rollout when it comes to battery-electric vehicles as part of the Japanese automaker’s increasingly delusional effort to slow down the electric vehicle revolution.

The US is lagging behind Europe and China when it comes to EV adoption, and a big part of the reason why is due to automakers focusing the sales of their new electric models in those markets because they are more valuable there due to regulations.

As we have been reporting over the last few months since the Biden administration took over, new legislations have been proposed to try to accelerate EV adoption in the US and address this issue.

Amid this renewed effort, Toyota is now lobbying the government against it.

Robert Wimmer, director of Energy and Environmental Research at Toyota Motor North America, testified at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing yesterday.

The Toyota executive gave the government a warning about going electric:

“If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification, it will require overcoming tremendous challenges, including refueling infrastructure, battery availability, consumer acceptance, and affordability.”

He used similar anti-EV talking points that his CEO used in a talk last year.

Wimmer also reportedly talked down the recent announcements from other automakers about going all-electric over the next decade (via Reuters):

“He will say that while rivals have made aspirational statements, less than 2% of vehicles sold in the U.S. last year were battery electric. He will also note it took Toyota 20 years to sell more than 4 million U.S. gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles.”

Several automakers have recently announced an acceleration of their battery-electric vehicle plans, including GM saying that it will go all-electric by 2035, Volvo by 2030, and several others.

Toyota hasn’t made such announcement as it has yet to release an all-electric vehicle outside of China.

For years, the Japanese automaker has instead invested in hydrogen fuel cell and hybrid vehicles while talking down battery-electric vehicles.

Nonetheless, it plans to launch some battery-electric vehicles in the US – though it appears to be doing it reluctantly.

In the very announcement to confirm its plan to bring two all-electric vehicles to the US last month, the automaker couldn’t resist taking a jab at all-electric vehicles and promote hybrids.

Electrek‘s take

This is a bad look for Toyota. They are just now bringing all-electric vehicles to the US, but at the same time, they are telling the government to slow their rollout when it comes to electric vehicles.

Those “tremendous challenges” that Wimmer is talking about are all things that other automakers have been actively addressing for years now, and Toyota would be on top of them, too, if they didn’t waste years and billions of dollars trying to make hydrogen fuel cells work in passenger vehicles.

Toyota, please don’t try to ruin the party for everyone just because you were late to it.