Tesla CEO Elon Musk does not rate hybrid cars highly.Last year he fired them He viewed it as a “stage” and said, “It’s time to move on.” However, Toyota attacked them further and the move proved to be prescient.
Hybrid vehicle sales have grown significantly in 2023, increasing by 48% year-on-year in the first three quarters. wall street journal report. Last year, hybrid sales decreased by about 6% compared to 2021.
“It’s a very hot market,” David Christ, head of sales for Toyota Motor Corporation’s North American operations, told the newspaper, adding that Toyota is building as many hybrid vehicles as possible, which combine a gasoline engine with an electric motor to save fuel. He added that it is being manufactured. .
Meanwhile, demand for electric vehicles has cooled. The market is still expanding, but the pace of growth has slowed significantly. In the first half of last year, worldwide he grew by 63%, but in the same period this year he only increased by 49%. journal report.
As a result, automakers such as GM and Ford are reconsidering their investments in EV production. Part of the problem is that the first group of buyers have already purchased EVs, and the next group of potential buyers are less motivated and more price sensitive.
“A lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck, and they’re carrying a lot of debt, they’re carrying credit card debt, they’re carrying mortgage debt,” Musk said during a third-quarter earnings conference last month. . “We have to make cars more affordable.”
His comments came as Tesla reported its lowest quarterly earnings per share in two years, 10% below analyst expectations, which were already negative.
Meanwhile, Ford’s third quarter report He said hybrid sales rose 41%, easily outpacing EV sales, and are expected to quadruple over the next five years.
This suggests that Toyota Chairman and former CEO Akio Toyoda, who has long been skeptical of the hype surrounding electric cars, is vindicated. He has long felt the industry should continue to invest in hybrid and hydrogen vehicles to avoid risks to EVs.
“People are finally starting to see reality,” he said recently.
A little more than a year ago, he told a gathering of dealers in Las Vegas that electric cars “will take longer than the media wants us to believe…Toyota is the department store for all types of powertrains.” . It is wrong for a department store to say, “Please buy this.” ”
Mr. Toyoda stepped down as CEO last year after investors called for Toyota to do more with all-electric vehicles.
Satoru Aoyama, senior director at Fitch Ratings, said, “Toyota is not responding correctly to the market call for leadership in electric vehicles.” Said of financial times In October last year, it warned that the company could “lose investor confidence.”
In the end, I gained more confidence instead of less.