Toyota Motor Corp announced today the release of a small electric sedan powered by BYD Co batteries. The battery-electric vehicles will be manufactured and sold in China.
The Toyota bZ3 is the name the Japanese automaker gave to the vehicle. Toyota did not specify when the vehicle would be available in dealerships.
It is the second model in Toyota’s new Beyond Zero (bZ) series of battery-electric vehicles (BEVs). The company has been chastised by activists and green investors for the slow adoption of BEVs.
They might be slow but are sure in battery-electric vehicles production
Toyota had planned to unveil the bZ3, which uses BYD’s smaller Blade batteries, at the Beijing auto show in April. But the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to people familiar with the situation.
Toyota and BYD actively collaborated on the bZ3, the company announced today.
As much is known in the public, Toyota considers rebooting its electric-car strategy to better compete in a booming market it has been slow to enter.
There are more proposals under review. If they pass up to next year it would amount to a dramatic shift for Toyota. Most definitely it will rewrite the $38-billion EV rollout plan the Japanese automaker announced last year to better compete with the electric vehicles of Tesla.
Toyota said it was committed to carbon neutrality
A working group within Toyota company already has a task to make outlining plans by early next year. They intend to make improvements to Toyota’s existing EV platform or for a new architecture.
Toyota confirmed its commitment to carbon neutrality. But the company never commented on specific initiatives. Instead, the company announced its second model new Beyond Zero (bZ) series of battery-electric vehicles.
This step was the best answer to the criticism by green investors and environmental groups. They argued that Toyota, once a favorite of environmentalists, has been too slow to embrace EVs.