Hyperdrive
Toyota Thrusts New CEO Into Position of Pitching Worth-the-Wait EVs
Selling Toyota’s electrification strategy will be job No. 1 for Koji Sato, the 53-year-old taking over from Akio Toyoda.
Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, right, with his successor Koji Sato at the Tokyo Auto Salon in Japan earlier this month.
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Toyota Motor Corp. has struggled to effectively convey its strategy of spreading its bets between hybrid, hydrogen and battery-electric vehicles to investors, consumers and environmental groups.
The approach has opened the world’s No. 1 carmaker up to criticism that it isn’t embracing an all-electric future. On one hand, that’s valid — Toyota sold fewer than 25,000 battery-electric vehicles last year, when Tesla Inc.’s cumulative deliveries passed the 3 million mark.