Japan's Toyota Motor (TM) has slashed its electric vehicle production plans for 2026 by a third, the Nikkei business daily reported, becoming the latest automaker to roll back electric car plans as EV sales momentum wanes.
The world's biggest automaker now plans to build 1 million EVs in 2026, compared with the company's earlier announced sales target of 1.5 million, it said.
Toyota said in a statement there was no change to its intention to produce 1.5 million EVs per year by 2026 and 3.5 million by 2030. It said, however, that the figures were not targets but benchmarks for shareholders.
Producing even 1 million electric vehicles per year, however, represents an ambitious undertaking for Toyota, which has put far more effort into developing hybrids and sold only about 104,000 EVs last year. EVs currently account for about 1% of its global sales.
Earlier this week, Swedish automaker Volvo (VOLCAR-B.ST, VOLV-B.ST, VLVLY, VOL3.F, 4VOLVB.TI) Cars scrapped its target of going all electric by 2030, saying it expects to still be offering some hybrid models in its lineup at that time.
In the US, Ford (F), General Motors (GM) and other car makers have delayed or cancelled new electric models to avoid spending heavily on vehicles that consumers are not buying as quickly as anticipated.
(Reporting by Daniel Leussink and Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)