How did Toyota, which is all in on hydrogen fuel, enter the competition in the pure electric vehicle market?

Pure electric and hydrogen fuel are the two main directions of the global new energy vehicle power system. At present, China has determined that pure electric vehicles are the future development path.

In order to compete for the Chinese market, the world's largest new energy market, global multinational automakers, especially European and American automakers, have formulated corresponding new energy strategies around electrification.

Toyota has been focusing on hydrogen fuel for many years, and the first hydrogen fuel cell car Mirai was launched as early as 2015. Toyota has not yet launched any pure electric vehicles in the global market.

In December 2016, Toyota began its transformation and established a pure electric business unit, which was personally led by Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda.

In December 2017, Toyota officially released its electrification strategy, announcing that it would accelerate the introduction of EVs, mainly in China, starting from 2020, and expand to more than 10 models worldwide by the first half of the 2020s.

At the same time, Toyota has not slowed down its investment and advancement in hydrogen fuel.

Toyota began researching hybrid technology in the 1970s. In 1997, the first generation of Toyota Prius began to be sold worldwide. In 2017, Toyota's sales of hybrid vehicles exceeded 10 million units worldwide.

However, Toyota has always regarded hybrid vehicles as a technology that will be eliminated. When the Chinese market vigorously supports and subsidizes PHEVs and pure electric vehicles, Toyota has always maintained a wait-and-see attitude or even rejected them.

Toyota has always been pessimistic about the development of battery technology, believing that the range of pure electric vehicles is too short and the charging time is too long.

In the "Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050" strategy released by Toyota in 2015, Toyota focused its future development direction on its own advantageous projects - hybrid electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles. Pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles were not mentioned in the report.

In terms of driving range, domestic car companies have already reached more than 400-500 kilometers. GAC New Energy is expected to launch products with a maximum driving range of more than 600km in 2019. According to Toyota's plan, it will launch its first pure electric vehicle in 2020, and the driving range of the new car will only be 300km.

Battery technology has made progress with difficulty, but Toyota did not personally participate in this gradual improvement. Instead, it passively chose to follow under pressure from policies and regulations.

As countries like China and the United States begin to implement laws and regulations to encourage the development of electric vehicles, automakers will have no choice but to launch electric vehicles or face the risk of going out of business.

In its forced transformation, Toyota has to face the situation of lagging far behind in its new energy strategy with pure electric power as the main line.

In terms of traditional energy, Chinese automakers started decades later than multinational giants. But in terms of electric vehicles, local automakers have already stood on the same starting line as the giants when they started, which may be a real opportunity to catch up.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.