Tag Archives: ZeroEmission

Business

Toyota pushes zero-emission goals by converting old models

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CHIBA, Japan (AP) — To accelerate the global move toward sustainable vehicles, Toyota is suggesting simply replacing the inner workings of vehicles already on the roads with cleaner technology like fuel cells and electric motors.

“I don’t want to leave any car lover behind,” Chief Executive Akio Toyoda said Friday, appearing on the stage at the Tokyo Auto Salon, an industry event similar to the world’s auto shows.

The message was clear: Toyota Motor Corp. wants the world to know it hasn’t fallen behind in electric vehicles, as some detractors have implied.

Japan’s top automaker, behind the Lexus luxury brands and the Prius hybrid, is highlighting its clout: It has all the technology, engineering, financial reserves and industry experience needed to remain a powerful competitor in green vehicles.

Toyoda told reporters it would take a long time for all the cars to become zero emission, as they only make up a fraction of the vehicles being sold. Changing old cars to go green, or “conversion,” was a better option, he said.

Toyoda, the grandson of the company founder and an avid racer himself, was also hoping to debunk the stereotype that clean cars aren’t as fun as regular cars.

At Toyota’s Gazoo Racing booth, the maker of the Lexus luxury models and Camry sedan showed video of its triumph at world rallies, as well as the battery-electric and hydrogen-powered versions of the Toyota AE86 series including the Toyota Corolla Levin, to underline what Toyoda called its “conversion” strategy.

The auto industry is undergoing a transformation because of growing concerns about climate change. Automakers are often blamed as the culprits.

Toyoda said ecological efforts in the auto industry were starting to be appreciated in many nations, but he felt less appreciated in Japan.

Toyota has dominated the industry with its hybrid technology, exemplified in the Prius, which has both an electric motor and gasoline engine, switching back and forth to deliver the most efficient ride. That has often been seen as reflecting its reluctance to go totally electric.

Battery electric vehicles make up about 20% of the auto market, despite the hullabaloo about relative newcomers like Tesla and even Dyson. Europe remains ahead of the U.S. and Japan in the move toward electric.

And so is it unfair to categorize the Japanese automakers as green laggards?

For one, the scarcity of certain components like lithium could drive up the prices of EVs, and consumers may stick with hybrids, says Matthias Schmidt, chief auto analyst at Schmidt Automotive Research.

“If this was 2025, and you asked that same question, I would say the Japanese OEMs have missed the boat. But seeing it’s 2023, and the likes of Toyota are beginning their BEV roll-out, their timing is likely bang on schedule,” he said.

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Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama



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Business

Top automakers won’t commit to selling only zero-emission cars by 2040

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The UN climate summit in Glasgow, chaired by the United Kingdom, wanted governments, manufacturers, and investors to promise to “work towards all sales of new cars and vans being zero emission globally by 2040, and by no later than 2035 in leading markets,” according to a declaration published on Wednesday.

The non-binding pledge was promoted by the summit’s organizers as central to efforts to keep carbon emissions in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement, which seeks to cap the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The United Kingdom, Canada, India and Poland, plus 19 other countries, signed the pledge but the list did not include the world’s biggest car markets: China and the United States. Germany, home to Europe’s biggest car industry, was also not ready to back it.

Germany’s environment minister Jochen Flasbarth accused the UK presidency of adding an “unnecessary barrier” by adding a footnote to the declaration that would also ban synthetic fuels.

“What’s gravely concerning today is that major economies like the US, Germany, China, Japan and manufacturers like VW, Toyota and Hyundai could not even bring themselves to sign a declaration on electric vehicles that promises less than what’s actually required to maintain climate security,” Martin Kaiser, executive director of Greenpeace Germany, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Toyota said in a statement that there wasn’t enough time to put such a wide-ranging policy in place by 2040, particularly in parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, which lack “the environment to promote electrification.”

“Because of this, we found it difficult to commit to a joint declaration and did not participate in the signing of it at this time,” the Japanese company said.

Volkswagen, which has invested heavily in electric cars and plans to build six “gigafactories” in Europe by 2030, said it was fully committed to that strategy “as the primary means to achieve zero emission vehicles.”

But, like Toyota, it said the 2040 deadline didn’t account for the differences in pace at which zero-emission vehicles would be adopted around the world. It also said that any accelerated shift to electric vehicles had to be “in line with an energy transition towards 100% renewables.”

“While transformative speed is of the essence, the pace of transformation will still differ from region to region … depending, among others on local political decisions driving EV [electric vehicles] and infrastructure investments,” it said in a statement.

BMW also refused to sign the pledge because of what it called “considerable uncertainty” about how a complete global shift to zero-emission vehicles would be supported, especially across significantly different markets.

The company said it had zero emission technology “ready today” and that models of its Rolls Royce and Mini brands built from the early 2030s onwards would be battery electric vehicles only.

Stuck in the slow lane?

Some carmakers, however, were ready to back the COP initiative.

Ford (F) signed the pledge and said it expected up to 40% of its global vehicle output “to be fully electric by 2030.” General Motors (GM) also backed the declaration.
Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler (DDAIF) signed the COP26 declaration, but added that its own objectives were “even more ambitious.” It said it was preparing for Mercedes to go all electric “by the end of the decade, where market conditions allow.”
Volvo (VOLAF), based in Sweden, signed up, having already announced its intention to only sell fully electric cars by 2030.
Uber (UBER) and Leaseplan also backed the pledge.

Benjamin Stephan, energy and transport campaigner at Greenpeace Germany, told CNN Business it was “not at all surprising” that the country’s main carmakers didn’t sign up to the COP26 pledge, singling out BMW as being reluctant to take a full electric path with its lines, in contrast to Volkswagen’s declared electric car strategy.

But he also criticized the pledge to only sell zero-emission vehicles by 2040 as a “step in the right direction, but way too slow” in order to meet the 1.5 Celsius and net zero targets by 2050.

— CNN’s Amy Cassidy, Mayumi Maruyama, Anna Cooban and Chris Liakos contributed to this story.

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Business

G.M. Will Sell Only Zero-Emission Vehicles by 2035

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The days of the internal combustion engine are numbered.

General Motors said Thursday it would phase out petroleum-powered cars and trucks and sell only vehicles that have zero tailpipe emissions by 2035, a seismic shift by one of the world’s largest automakers that makes billions of dollars today from gas-guzzling pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles.

The announcement could put pressure on automakers around the world to make similar commitments. It could also embolden President Biden and other elected officials to push for even more aggressive policies to fight climate change. Leaders could point to G.M.’s decision as evidence that even big businesses have decided that it is time for the world to begin to transition away from fossil fuels that have powered the global economy for more than a century.

Several other automakers, most of them European, have previously pledged more modest steps in the direction that G.M. says it is headed. Daimler, which makes Mercedes-Benz cars, has said that it would have an electric or hybrid version of each of its models by 2022, and Volkswagen has promised an electric version for each of its models by 2030.

Electric cars represent the fastest-growing segment of the auto industry, but they still make up a small proportion of new car sales: about 3 percent of the global total, according to the International Energy Agency. Sales of such cars jumped last year in Europe and China but they remain niche products in the United States. They are bought primarily by affluent early adopters who are drawn to the luxury models made by Tesla, which dominates the business, and by environmentally conscious consumers.

G.M. said that its decision to switch to electric cars was part of a broader plan to become carbon neutral by 2040. Its announcement came a day after Mr. Biden signed an executive order to step up the fight against climate change, including a directive for the federal government to electrify its large vehicle fleet.

“General Motors is joining governments and companies around the globe working to establish a safer, greener and better world,” Mary T. Barra, G.M.’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “We encourage others to follow suit and make a significant impact on our industry and on the economy as a whole.”

G.M. said it would increase the use of renewable energy, and would eliminate or offset emissions from its factories, buildings, vehicles and other sources.

The company plans to spend $27 billion over the next five years to introduce 30 electric vehicles, including an electric Hummer pickup truck that it expects to start delivering to customers later this year.

G.M. stock jumped after its announcement and was up more than 4 percent around 2 p.m., reflecting a growing consensus among investors that electric cars represent the future and that Tesla and other electric carmakers will eventually dominate the auto industry, while businesses that do not make the transition to electrics will do poorly.

The company said it was working with the Environmental Defense Fund to build charging stations for electric cars and to convince drivers to switch to electric cars.

“E.D.F. and G.M. have had some important differences in the past, but this is a new day in America — one where serious collaboration to achieve transportation electrification, science-based climate progress and equitably shared economic opportunity can move our nation forward,” the president of the group, Fred Krupp, said in a statement.

Jack Ewing contributed reporting.

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