Toyota NZ might have stuck to its traditionally conservative script at the launch of the Corolla Cross hybrid SUV in this country, but a senior Toyota Australia executive departed from its for the same car across the Tasman.
Aussie sales and marketing boss Sean Hanley had just finished talking up the new petrol-electric model at a presentation in Sydney when he was asked about Toyota’s position on all-electric cars, in light of criticism of it being slow to produce zero-emission vehicles and the further delay until next year of its first, the BZ4X.
“Toyota is not opposed to battery-electric vehicles,” Hanley (pictured) was reported as telling media. “We believe that to get to carbon neutrality, you have to take everyone on the journey. You have to have a solution for the market you’re operating in.
“In the market we operate in, we believe right now that the solution is a diversity of products and powertrains (engines). We’ll have battery-electric vehicles for some customers who’ll want that in town, we’ll have hybrid-electric vehicles, fuel-cell electric vehicles, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
“We believe that you have to have a diverse range of technologies to get there. The point is this: carbon is the enemy here, not the powertrain. We are in full support of some mandated type of legislation around (emissions reductions). The one thing everybody agrees with … is we have to get to a carbon-neutral position.
“Toyota is not arguing the toss on that. That’s not a debate. Even with the most extreme viewpoint, we agree you’ve got to get to carbon neutral. What we’re disagreeing on is … how and when you get there.”
(Hanley echoed recent comments by Toyota Motor Corp. president Akio Toyoda, who told a conference in the US that consumers need to be offered not just electric cars but a variety of efficient vehicle types on the road to carbon neutral. “Everything is going to be up to the customers to decide,” Toyoda said. “Toyota is a department store of all sorts of powertrains. It’s not right for the department store to say, ‘This is the product you should buy’.”)
Hanley continued to move away from the Corolla Cross hybrid SUV script, indirectly reminding all-electric vehicle lobbyists in Australia that battery-power is not the only way forward.
“To be honest, some of this belief that you can just go full electric in 10 years in this country and satisfy the … owners and what they want to do with cars, is a very difficult proposition. So therefore, (we say) a diversity of technologies that takes everybody on the journey is a way of getting to (lower vehicle emissions).”
Toyota Australia clocked up the 300,000th sale of hybrid vehicles earlier this month, 21 years after it introduced the Prius. “I’d suggest we played a role in reducing carbon (emissions) 21 years ago, not three years ago when it became trendy,” said Hanley.
“We are the only car company that represents 30 per cent of our sales that are hybrid right now. That is playing a role in reducing (emissions).”
Toyota has calculated that the emissions reductions of three hybrid vehicles are “almost equal” to that of one electric car. “The 300,000 hybrids we’ve sold so far are equivalent to the CO2-reduction effect of introducing approximately 90,000 (electric vehicles) to the market,” said Hanley.
In New Zealand, the five-door Corolla Cross petrol-electric SUV is available in three grades: front-drive GX ($41,990), front-drive GXL ($44,990), front-drive Limited ($48,990), all-wheel-drive Limited ($51,990).
It is bigger and rides higher than the Corolla hatchback. Under the bonnet is a four-cylinder 2.0-litre engine developing 135kW and mated to a CVT transmission. C02 exhaust emissions of between 107 and 112gr/km make the range eligible for the Clean Car discount.