Toyota launches first fully electric vehicle in China
2 June 2020
The Sino-Japan joint venture FAW Toyota Auto launched the first full-electric vehicle Izoa, which uses nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) batteries manufactured by Japanese technology firm Panasonic, on the Chinese market.
Toyota and Panasonic launched a joint venture in February to produce prismatic lithium-ion batteries, solid-state batteries, and next-generation batteries for electric vehicles.
Toyota is increasing its share in the new energy vehicle (NEV) sector. In June last year, it has been calculated that the total sales of NEVs will be more than 50% by 2025. Electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles are expected to be more than 10%. Toyota sees the launch of Izoa as the first step to this.
In April, Toyota established a 50% stake in joint venture with Chinese automaker BYD to design and develop full-electric vehicles in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, in southern China.
The NEV industry in China has developed rapidly in recent years and the NEV market has become more open to investments from foreign manufacturers such as Tesla, Toyota, Honda and General Motors.
Despite market discussions that US electric vehicle maker Tesla can use lithium iron phosphate batteries to produce electric vehicles, NCM batteries are used in its factory in Shanghai.
China’s NEV production and sales increased in April compared to a month ago, as the Covid-19 outbreak eased in the country and government took measures to boost sales. In April, the country’s all-electric vehicle production rose by 50% over March to 57,000 units, down by 31.4% over the previous year. While sales of full-electric vehicles increased by 27.5% as of March, decreased by 28.6% compared to the previous year and decreased to 51,000 units.
