Toyota makes greens see red

GREENPEACE has accused Toyota of actively working to slow the uptake of electric vehicles and delay the introduction of vehicle efficiency standards in Australia.

In a report published on Thursday, the organisation calls the brand “one of the world’s most aggressive anticlimate lobbyists”.

The allegations mark a big shift in attitude towards Toyota, which has been long lauded by environmentalists for its pioneering development of fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles.

“Toyota has long enjoyed a position as one of Australia’s most trusted brands but when it comes to tackling climate change, evidence is mounting that Australians’ trust in Toyota is misplaced,” the report says. In its Auto Environmental Guide 2022, Greenpeace has ranked Toyota last in its analysis of the top 10 automotive brands’ plans for decarbonisation.

General Motors ranks first, ahead of Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen.

Greenpeace campaigner Violette Snow said Toyota ranked poorly because EVs made up less than .2 per cent of its total sales. “About 499 out of every 500 vehicles that they sold were still powered by fossil fuels,” Ms Snow said.

In contrast, 8.2 per cent of GM vehicles and 5.21 per cent of Volkswagens were EVs. Ford ranked fourth on the list, while Hyundai and its sister company Kia were fifth.

Ms Snow said Toyota had “an established pattern of tactics” it employed to weaken emissions reduction targets around the globe.

“That includes working to reduce public confidence in all-electric zero emissions vehicles, lobbying to weaken legislation regulating climate pollution from transport, greenwashing the impact of its own vehicles in its marketing and championing outdated solutions such as hybrid cars which long-term prolong the usage of fossil fuels,” she said.

She said the world had moved on from hybrids.

“You can’t run a hybrid without fossil fuels and if we’re still powering our cars with fossil fuels, we’re not going to reach zero emissions,” she said.

Greenpeace’s report acknowledges that Toyota “made a U-turn” on EVs in December last year, but argues it has lost ground on rivals.

Toyota showed off more than a dozen battery-powered concept cars last December as part of an overall $100bn investment in low-emission motoring it says will deliver 30 new EVs by 2030.

It is targeting global sales of 3.5 million electric vehicles a year by 2030.

But the maker only recently launched its first EV, the bZ4X, a hatchback co-developed with Subaru. That vehicle will arrive here next year.

The brand has been reluctant to commit to electric cars, arguing that hybrids are more affordable and popular than EVs and can do more to lower emissions in the short term.

Toyota Australia’s vice president of sales and marketing Sean Hanley said last week high costs and operational shortcomings meant EVs were not a viable option for many drivers.

He said the brand’s bZ4X was priced at 42 per cent more than a RAV4 hybrid in the US.

“People can’t pay this much for these cars,” Mr Hanley said.