If all cars in Japan were electric, the country would be short of electricity in the summer, while the infrastructure for a 100-percent EV fleet would cost the equivalent of up to US$358 billion, The Wall Street Journal quoted Toyota’s President Akio Toyoda as saying at a press conference in his role as chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.
Japan is reportedly considering a ban on the sale of new gasoline-fueled cars in the middle of the 2030s, reports emerged earlier this month.
“When politicians are out there saying, ‘Let’s get rid of all cars using gasoline,’ do they understand this?” Toyoda said, as carried by the Journal.
A rush to ban gasoline and diesel cars would destroy the automotive industry and leave millions of people out of a job, Toyota’s president also said.
Toyota has been working to develop hybrid electric vehicles and hydrogen-fueled cars, but it also says that it plans to “accelerate the popularization of battery electric vehicles with more than 10 models available in world markets by the early 2020s.”
Toyota is selling the Mirai fuel cell vehicle running on hydrogen, and plans to boost tenfold the global sales of the Mirai with the second-generation Mirai. The new Toyota Mirai will have a 30-percent increase in driving range to around 650 kilometers (404 miles), the carmaker said at the end of last month.
For the rest of the story: RT