Recently, Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor Corporation, pointed out in public that electric vehicles have been over-advertised. "If all cars are powered by electricity, not only will there be a power shortage in Japan in summer, but the current business model of the automobile industry will also collapse, causing millions of people to lose their jobs."

However, in the eyes of young people who are making new cars, this is just the cry for help that the old comrades of traditional cars are about to die.

On February 2, 65438+Kloc-0/day, CEO of Xpeng Automobile posted a news screenshot in Weibo, and wrote: "On April 25, 20 14, Microsoft officially completed the acquisition of. When Yoma Ollila, the current CEO of Nokia, announced at a press conference that he agreed to buy Microsoft, he finally said, "We didn't do anything wrong, but I don't know why we lost." . "After that, dozens of Nokia executives, including him, could not help crying."

The implication is that Toyota can undoubtedly be compared with Nokia.

In fact, there has been a discussion in the industry that "traditional car companies will be subverted like Nokia". The mainstream view generally believes that if traditional car companies do not change, they will be eliminated by the surging new forces.

Akio Toyoda's remarks are actually a response to the latest new energy policy of the Japanese government.

On June 26th, 2020, 10, Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide announced to the outside world that "Japan will achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050." Then, in order to achieve this goal, the Japanese Ministry of Economic Research decided to ban the sale of fuel vehicles in 2035.

"No burning" was put on the agenda, which made Akio Toyoda, who has always been rigorous and low-key, unable to sit still.

"If the automobile industry turns to manufacturing electric vehicles too early, the current business model of the automobile industry will collapse." Akio Toyoda expressed his views and pointed out that "if all cars use electricity, Japan will run out of electricity in summer. In addition, Japan will need to upgrade its power infrastructure to support the charging of all electric vehicles. "

According to his estimation, this will cost Japan 14 trillion to 37 trillion yen (about 0.88 trillion to 2.34 trillion yuan), and this part of the cost will eventually be paid from the taxes paid by consumers.

At the same time, he also said, "The more electric vehicles we manufacture, the more carbon dioxide emissions will be, and the more difficult it will be to achieve carbon neutrality. When politicians say' Let's get rid of all cars that use gasoline' outside, do they understand? "

For a long time, Toyota, the world's most profitable automobile manufacturer, has made no secret of its dislike of pure electric vehicles.

Just a few days ago, Akio Toyoda also aimed his artillery at Tesla, the "leader" in the field of electric vehicles. It is said that it not only seriously overestimates its own value, but also is not mature enough to affect the global automobile development trend, especially in the field of electric vehicle technology.

Not only that, Akio Toyoda vividly described the difference between Toyota and Tesla with the metaphor of "running a restaurant". He pointed out that Tesla's business is a restaurant that is still promoting novel recipes, while Toyota is more like a restaurant that already has a large number of customers.

"Tesla believes that their recipes will become the standard of the future, but Toyota has a real kitchen and chef. Tesla didn't make anything real. Consumers were just buying recipes. And Toyota has a kitchen and a chef, and we can make real food. "

It is reported that the history of Toyota is 70 years earlier than that of Tesla. In the year when Tesla was just born, Toyota Motor Corporation firmly occupied the top spot in the automobile market and gradually replaced General Motors as the world's number one automobile manufacturer.

However, it is worth noting that this situation was broken in June this year, and Tesla turned over to become the new owner of the throne of the world's largest car company by market value.

Today, the market value of Tesla has surpassed the sum of the market values of nine global automakers, including Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, GM, Ford, Honda, Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot, reaching 2.66 times that of Toyota.

"In terms of stock price, we are suffering losses, but in terms of products, we have a complete menu for customers to choose from." Akio Toyoda said that the "complete menu" he refers to covers core businesses such as internal combustion engines, pure electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles.

Behind Akio Toyoda's accusation of electric vehicles, Toyota is not doing nothing in the field of electric vehicles.

In fact, Toyota is one of the earliest car companies involved in electrification technology in the world. As early as 1997, hybrid models were introduced. Unlike other pure electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries, Toyota has been focusing on hybrid vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

However, the field created by gravity made Toyota lose the opportunity under the wave of electrification transformation.

On the emerging new energy track, pure electricity has become a well-deserved seed player, while hybrid power is relatively less.

Take Toyota Prius as an example, its sales volume has plummeted: 20 12 years, and the sales volume of four Prius models is 237,000. Last year, the total number was 87,600 vehicles (including the Prius Prime plug-in hybrid vehicle), which was only one third of that of six years ago. As of June, 2020 165438+ 10, Toyota only sold 63700 Prius.

In addition, in the field of high-stakes hydrogen energy vehicles, Toyota has not made a good bet.

In 20 14, Toyota released the world's first mass-produced fuel cell vehicle Mirai. June 5438+February this year, the second generation of Mirai attacked again. Toyota hopes to build it into a "luxury car that customers really like" and even the starting point for the large-scale popularization of hydrogen energy technology. However, the fuel cell technology is "far water is difficult to solve near thirst", and it does not have the conditions for large-scale commercialization at present.

In contrast, pure electric vehicles have developed power battery products with battery changing mode and long battery life, which have solved the problems of short battery life and slow charging.

"It is not too late for Toyota to enter the electrification transformation, but the route is conservative and vacillates between the three technical routes of hybrid power, pure electricity and hydrogen energy."

Nowadays, in the face of the lost market and the future situation, Toyota has also accelerated its research and development and manufacturing in the field of pure electric vehicles.

In 20 19, Akio Toyoda personally took the lead and set up a brand-new department within Toyota, focusing on the research and development of new energy vehicles. In addition, Toyota is also actively looking for allies. In April this year, Toyota Motor and BYD jointly established a joint venture company to jointly promote the development of the company's electric vehicles.

Moreover, Toyota plans to sell 5.5 million electric vehicles worldwide by 2025. Toyota also said that it will launch a pure electric vehicle with solid-state batteries in 20021year, which can travel 500 kilometers at a time and be fully charged within 10 minute.

"This is not just a simple victory or defeat, but a battle of life and death has started." When the electric vehicle department was established, Akio Toyoda sighed.

In fact, under the tide of electric vehicles, who can be immune?

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.