Toyota Motors to Expand EV lineup in EU Markets

Toyota Motor announced on Dec 4 that it would expand its battery electric vehicle lineup in Europe to six models by 2026, with such vehicles accounting for more than 20% of new car sales in the region by then. The world's largest automaker by sales said in a statement that it expects to sell more than 250,000 battery-powered vehicles in Europe each year by 2026, as it seeks rapid growth in a market where it has long lagged behind competitors.

Toyota unveiled two new concepts for models that it plans to sell in the region later, in addition to a battery EV that the company is currently selling in Europe and a compact sports utility vehicle (SUV) concept that it already showcased last year.

Toyota said in statements that one was a concept model for a battery-powered small SUV that it plans to launch in Europe in 2024 and the other was a concept for a sports crossover model that will debut in 2025. Toyota plans to sell 1.5 million battery-powered vehicles per year globally by 2026.

Sales of fully electric cars in the European Union (EU) increased by more than half in the first ten months of the year compared to the same period the previous year, according to data released last month by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. Toyota had the fifth-biggest total auto market share in the EU for the 10 months through October, seeing its share decline slightly from the previous year to just under 7 per cent, the data showed.