Toyota Motors Chairman Akio Toyoda claimed that a U.S. electric vehicle mandate would hurt jobs as far as Japan.
The Biden administration is pushing for 50% of new vehicle sales to be electric by 2030 on top of a 67% target by 2032. Toyoda’s skepticism of reaching such a threshold comes as his own company sold 49.3% of all hybrid electric vehicles sold in August alone. The chairman said he personally likes gas-powered vehicles.
“There are 5.5 million people involved in the automotive industry in Japan,” Toyoda told reporters Thursday. “Among them are those who have been doing engine-related (work) for a long time. If electric vehicles simply become the only choice, including for our suppliers, those people’s jobs would be lost.”
Meanwhile, the Transportation Department is struggling to provide chargers as it promotes electric vehicles under the Biden administration’s promises. It has built about eight charging stations over two years with $7.5 billion on hand. Its goal is to have 500,000 new chargers by 2030.
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Toyota reported that 36.6% of total sales for its first quarter were EV models, a 74% increase from the previous quarter. By the third quarter, these models made up 41% of sales. It offers 30 electric Toyota and Lexus vehicle options, the most of any automaker.
U.S. consumers bought more than 145,00 plug-in vehicles in August. While that was a 17.3% uptick from last August, they still only represented 10.22% of total sales.
