Toyota is undoubtedly lagging behind the rest of the auto industry when it comes to all-electric vehicles. They don’t have a single purely battery-powered car on the market since discontinuing the Rav4 EV, which was a compliance car with a powertrain made by Tesla, and they don’t plan to have one for the next few years. We reviewed the Prius Prime which we found disappointing, noting that it was a shame that this green innovator had fallen so far.

Takeshi Uchiyamada, Toyota’s Chairman, laid out why they are not making significant moves in the sector. expand full story

Mazda and Toyota, arguably the two major automakers least invested in electric vehicles, are working on a new joint-venture to develop electric cars.

There’s been a lot of consolidation in the auto industry over the years, but the interesting aspect of this case is that surviving the electric car revolution in the industry is at least partly the reason behind it. expand full story

We reported on how Toyota is late to the electric car revolution just yesterday. While the Japanese automaker doesn’t seem to have many EVs in the pipeline, it has now confirmed that it plans to be among the first automakers to commercialize electric cars using new solid-state batteries. expand full story

Toyota has long been one of the most reticent large automakers when it comes to producing all-electric vehicles. It had no problems with hybrids, e.g. the Prius, but the Japanese automaker would only produce the bare minimum when it came to zero-emission mandates, e.g. the Rav4 EV in California, and they quickly lobbied to change those mandates.

They are now doing the same in China, where the government is about to ramp up its electric car mandate, and while Toyota, like almost all other automakers, tried to stop the mandate, it looks like it’s going to happen and it might finally force the automaker to mass produce EVs. expand full story

More recent Tesla enthusiasts might not be aware that Tesla and Toyota used to have close ties. Back in 2010, Toyota invested $50 million in Tesla and they brokered a heavily discounted sale of the Nummi factory, which is now Tesla’s Fremont factory.

Tesla also used to supply the electric powertrain of the Toyota RAV4 EV up until 2014 when the program stopped. At that point, Toyota sold most of its Tesla shares for a healthy profit and this weekend, it confirmed that it sold all its remaining shares before the end of last year. expand full story

Late last year, Toyota finally took a significant step toward making electric vehicles after years of being stuck in fuel cell development. They set up a new division to build their first all-electric vehicle and they even put CEO Akio Toyoda in charge of the new team.

Now Toyoda is apparently still fleshing out the Japanese automaker’s electric vehicle strategy and looking at Tesla for inspiration. expand full story

NVIDIA, a leading GPU maker, has been emerging as an important computing power supplier for the automotive industry’s transition to autonomous driving. Over the past two decades, the computing power in the passenger cars has increased significantly, but it’s nothing compared to how it will have to increase over the next decade in order for cars to drive themselves.

Toyota has become today the latest automaker to team up with NVIDIA in order to accelerate their autonomous vehicle program. expand full story

Toyota is undoubtedly having difficulties selling the Mirai, its hydrogen car, in the US. Despite cutting the price on several occasions, with now a lease at only $350 (down from $500) in California, the Japanese automaker can’t find a market for the vehicle and only delivered 782 units during the first 2 years of production. That’s despite the millions of dollars in government money spent on refueling infrastructure.

The automaker is now turning to big rigs to use the fuel cell hydrogen powertrain with a new prototype unveiled today. expand full story

Toyota, the largest automaker in the world, announced today a new $35 million initiative to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop new advanced materials with a focus on creating the next generation battery for electric vehicles.

The project is led by the US-based Toyota Research Institute (TRI) and they will work with “research entities, universities, and companies on materials science research.” expand full story

It’s the Geneva Motor Show and new car concepts are being unveiled left and right. Electric vehicles account for a significant number of those new concepts to the point that Toyota, which is known for betting on hydrogen fuel cells and its hacked up Prius Prime over EVs is also debuting a new electric concept.

The Japanese automaker says that it commissioned the new vehicle called ‘i-Tril’ from its French design studio in collaboration with the company’s ED² design studio in Nice based on research on the company’s younger demographic. expand full story