Toyota has confirmed ambitious plans for sales electric vehicles and decarbonisation of the company over the next 9 years after revealing a solid rebound in sales and earnings in the closing months of the company’s March 31 financial year after the first half was hit hard by the impact of Covid in Japan, the US and other major markets.
The company indicated in commentary with the annual sales and financial results that it is looking to boost spending on connected and electric vehicles of all types by 20% from the one trillion or $US9.1 billion spent in 2020-21.
The aim is to boost the share electric and connected vehicles of the company’s total annual sales to 80% by 2030.
Toyota said on Wednesday that it is looking to sell 2.8 million electric vehicles (of all types) this year, which if achieved, would be a rise of 130% from 2020-21’s level and represent 29.2% of expected sales for the year.
80% of 2030’s sales for the world’s biggest carmaker would be around 8 million vehicles a year, so in effect the company is aiming at more than doubling the share electric vehicles will have total sales by the start of the next decade.
And Toyota will not be lacking in resources – it is forecasting a 2.3 trillion yen ($US21 billion) profit in 2021-22 on sales of 30 trillion yen ($US276 billion) as vehicle sales continue to recover both in Japan and abroad.
The forecast profit for the current year follows a surprise 10.3% rise in net profit to 2.25 trillion yen in 2020-21 when earnings were bolstered by solid sales in its two important markets of the United States and China and by foreign exchange gains.
Excluding foreign exchange gains and other one-off items Toyota’s operating profit fell 8.4% to 2.2 trillion yen, as sales fell 8.9% to 27.21 trillion yen with a 5.1% fall in global volume sales because of the impact of Covid and lockdowns in various markets during the year which restricted sales.
Toyota expects to sell plans to sell 10.55 million vehicles worldwide, up 6.4% from 9.92 million the year before. Toyota and Lexus brand vehicle sales are projected at 9.6 million vehicles for this fiscal year, up from nearly 9.1 million units for the last fiscal year.
Toyota rival Nissan said on Tuesday it narrowed its net loss to 448.7 billion yen for the fiscal year to March, recovering from the pandemic. But Nissan expects to stay in the red for the current year, warning its outlook remained clouded by the global chip shortage.
Nissan says it’s sales will be down 250,000 units this year because of the shortage of computer chips while Ford have said their sales will be down by a combined 1.1 million this year.
But Toyota thinks it has largely escaped any big hits.
