The Toyota revamp: Lexus to lead EVs as new Toyota CEO picks up pace on electric car strategy - report

Toyota's new CEO, Koji Sato, has outlined the primary points of his new strategy to get Toyota moving more quickly when it comes to electric cars and other means of lowering emissions.

Sato announced his new leadership team for Toyota this week, bringing younger executives into the upper echelons of the world's biggest car company, after 53-year-old Sato's predecessor Akio Toyoda, 66, said it was time for younger energy to lead the business.

Yesterday Sato also confirmed three main focuses for the business going forward: BEV reform, achieving carbon neutrality in Asia, and strengthening its 'Woven' prototype mobility initiative.

Sato says Toyota needs to rethink the way it approaches carmaking if it's to succeed in the world of electrification.

"The first is business reform starting with next-generation BEVs," Sato said. "To deliver attractive BEVs to more customers, we must streamline the structure of the car and with a BEV-first mindset, we must drastically change the way we do business."

Key to that, Sato says, will be a new EV platform that will roll out in around three years.

While Toyota is still exploring pathways to emissions reduction via other technologies like increased hybridisation and even hydrogen fuel cells, Sato says the battery electrification portion of the strategy will fall under the Lexus brand.

Lexus will aim to sell one million electric cars across the world in 2030, almost one third of the 3.5 million EVs Toyota as a whole hopes to sell by that time.

Lexus will aim to sell one million electric cars across the world in 2030, almost one third of the 3.5 million EVs Toyota as a whole hopes to sell by that time.

In addition, Lexus as a sub-brand aims to be entirely electrified by 2035.

To that effect, former Lexus head of electric cars Takashi Watanabe will take Sato's old job as president of the Lexus brand, but it won't be entirely down to him.

Sato has put 52-year-old vice president Masanori Kuwata, currently Toyota's compliance and risk boss, in charge of electrification under the Lexus brand, as well as restructuring operations for Toyota to work more efficiently as a company building electric cars.

"Our new team, under the theme of 'inheritance and evolution', will implement product-centred and region-centred management, while valuing the philosophy of our company's founding and will endeavour to fully redesign Toyota into a mobility company," Sato said in January when he was named as the successor to Akio Toyoda, grandson of Toyota's founder.

"The management team of Toyota is like a soccer team," Sato added. "The formation has to be flexible depending on the challenges we're facing."

"My role as president will be to maximise the strength of the team as captain."

But it's not a complete shift in strategy, with Sato clarifying the brand is still sticking to its multi-pronged approach to the shift away from traditional internal combustion engines.

"This is not a fast pivot towards battery EVs," Sato said as quoted by Reuters.

"To the point that we have been slow at battery EV projects, I think around half of it is a communication issue."

While Toyota has been called slow to the table in regards to BEVs, executives are often quick to point out that its lead on hybrid cars over the last few decades has been greatly beneficial in reducing emissions, as well as the brand's continued investigation of hydrogen fuel cells.

Sato says the battery electrification portion of the strategy will fall under the Lexus brand.

Battery electric cars, according to Sato, are just one (albeit large) part of the plan, which will be more solidly announced once his role officially commences on April 1 this year.

Toyota currently has a platform on which to build electric cars, called e-TNGA (Toyota New Global Architecture), based heavily on its widely acclaimed TNGA platform which underpins most of its current models.

The e-TNGA platform has been the basis for three cars so far: The Toyota bZ4X and its Subaru Solterra twin, and the Lexus RZ.

None have yet launched in Australia, though even across the world the brand has been slow to pick up sales. Automotive News reports Toyota sold just 24,466 electric cars in 2022, while electric car pioneer Tesla sold almost 54 times that with 1,313,851.

While Tesla is built from the ground up to be an electric car brand, Toyota must shift its philosophy if it hopes to compete, a sentiment confirmed by outgoing CEO Toyoda, who will remain in the company as the chair of the board.

"The new team under upcoming President Sato has a mission to transform Toyota into a mobility company," Toyoda said last month.

"He has youth and like-minded colleagues. I expect this new team to go beyond the limits that I can't break through."