A few weeks ago, Koji Sato took over as the chairman of Toyota’s board, replacing the current head of the company, Akio Toyoda. The new manager’s statements suggest that Toyota’s overall course will not change – Sato believes that the backbone of Toyota’s future will be hydrogen cars, not battery-powered electric cars.
“We want to make sure that hydrogen is still an affordable option. We need a production and transportation chain. If we don’t see progress on these issues, we can’t expect to see an increase in hydrogen use,” says Sato.
This does not mean that Toyota will abandon electric cars. Not at all – Sato believes that electric cars will play an important role in Toyota’s future, with electric cars, hydrogen cars and hybrids complementing each other. Toyota plans to develop all these technologies and not put all the cards on just one specific technology, in order to maintain the ability to offer different technologies for different needs, as the needs tend to be drastically different between markets.
