Toyota’s chairman has fired back at criticism the carmaker has been too slow to adopt electric vehicles by stating they will never take more than 30% of the market.
Petrol, diesel and hydrogen-fuelled cars will always have a much bigger share, according to Akio Toyoda who was speaking at an event broadcast on Tuesday.
Toyoda has faced the brunt of criticism for Toyota’s cautious approach to EVs where despite being the world’s largest carmaker overall it is trailing well behind Tesla and its fast-growing Chinese rivals.
Instead, Toyota has gone down the hybrid-power route while developing hydrogen-powered cars.
Toyoda repeated the message yesterday, stating that shifting towards electricity when a billion people globally haven’t got access doesn't make much sense.
“Engines will surely remain,” he added.
In a plan unveiled just ahead of a defeated shareholder motion last year to have Toyoda removed as chairman, Toyota said it wanted to produce 3.5m EVS annually by 2020.
Toyota currently sells around 10.5m vehicles a year worldwide.