Photo: vburlapp / Instagram
While it didn't beat GM to snatch its American automotive sales crown in 2023, Toyota still had a record year with 11.23 million vehicles sold across its subsidiaries – swiftly beating Volkswagen AG on a worldwide level. And yet, very few of these deliveries had zero local emissions.
A lot of folks have criticized the Japanese conglomerate for its reluctance to join the novel EV lifestyle. Yet, last year, they fared better than everyone and are currently deadlocked in a battle for the worldwide top-selling nameplate as they claim that its Corolla nameplate ultimately outsold Tesla's Model Y based on new figures. That's debatable, as they tally both the passenger car and Corolla Cross models – while Tesla doesn't bundle Model 3 and Model Y sales together.
Anyway, what's more important to note is that they're so late to the EV party that less than one percent of their sales represented fully electric vehicles! Even though sales rose more than 325% for EVs, it's still like a drop of water in a giant lake of ICE-powered and hybrid vehicles. Akio Toyoda is well known for not betting heavily on EVs, and he even said in a recent interview that he believes zero emissions vehicles won't account for more than 30% of Toyota corporation's sales by the time they finally diversify the EV lineup.
Speaking of diversification, everyone expects more bZ models to arrive soon, and we really hope that the Land Cruiser electric concept will make it into series production. But that probably means there are still not enough EVs to make an effective alternative to ICE-powered, hybrid, and fuel-cell variants. No worries, though, as the imaginative realm of digital car content creators always has a solution.
More precisely, Vince Burlapp (aka vburlapp on social media or burlappcar.com), who is a prolific virtual artist and loves to dream of all the latest models across the wide-ranging automotive realm, has a workaround for the conundrum. The pixel master recently imagined that Toyota could go bold and rework some of its most popular nameplates into wildly-designed EVs.
The first one to undergo the transformation was the best-selling Camry mid-size sedan, and now there's also a more compact companion in the form of the hypothetical Prius EV. It's only logical since the latter started the hybrid revolution all those decades ago for the Japanese automaker, right? The current model, reinvented as a 'Hybrid Reborn' in HEV and PHEV (Prime) form, has already swapped the biggest accolade in North America – NACTOY's car of the year award.
So, perhaps, when it's time for the XW70 sixth generation five or six years from now, Toyota will switch the zero emissions attitude into high gear and also offer a fully electric version of the Prius alongside the HEV and Prime models. Who knows, maybe it will even look like this unofficial design project?
Anyway, what's more important to note is that they're so late to the EV party that less than one percent of their sales represented fully electric vehicles! Even though sales rose more than 325% for EVs, it's still like a drop of water in a giant lake of ICE-powered and hybrid vehicles. Akio Toyoda is well known for not betting heavily on EVs, and he even said in a recent interview that he believes zero emissions vehicles won't account for more than 30% of Toyota corporation's sales by the time they finally diversify the EV lineup.
Speaking of diversification, everyone expects more bZ models to arrive soon, and we really hope that the Land Cruiser electric concept will make it into series production. But that probably means there are still not enough EVs to make an effective alternative to ICE-powered, hybrid, and fuel-cell variants. No worries, though, as the imaginative realm of digital car content creators always has a solution.
More precisely, Vince Burlapp (aka vburlapp on social media or burlappcar.com), who is a prolific virtual artist and loves to dream of all the latest models across the wide-ranging automotive realm, has a workaround for the conundrum. The pixel master recently imagined that Toyota could go bold and rework some of its most popular nameplates into wildly-designed EVs.
The first one to undergo the transformation was the best-selling Camry mid-size sedan, and now there's also a more compact companion in the form of the hypothetical Prius EV. It's only logical since the latter started the hybrid revolution all those decades ago for the Japanese automaker, right? The current model, reinvented as a 'Hybrid Reborn' in HEV and PHEV (Prime) form, has already swapped the biggest accolade in North America – NACTOY's car of the year award.
So, perhaps, when it's time for the XW70 sixth generation five or six years from now, Toyota will switch the zero emissions attitude into high gear and also offer a fully electric version of the Prius alongside the HEV and Prime models. Who knows, maybe it will even look like this unofficial design project?
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