Car manufacturers Toyota, Subaru and Mazda are committed to developing new engines
Toyota Motor and smaller Japanese automakers Subaru and Mazda Motor have each committed to developing new engines geared for electrification, they said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
“With these engines, each of the three companies will strive to optimize integration with motors, batteries and other electric power units,” they said in the statement, pledging to create more compact engines that allow for lower hoods.
Toyota, which has benefited from the rise of gasoline-electric hybrids in markets such as the US after drivers cooled off on electric vehicles, hopes a more compact engine will help innovate vehicle design by saving space under the hood.
“If it’s cool, it will sell. Therefore, profits will increase,” Chief Technology Officer Hiroki Nakajima told reporters at the Fuji Speedway circuit on Friday.
“If it’s not cool, no one will buy it.”
The announcement is the latest example showing Toyota’s close ties with Subaru and Mazda. Toyota owns about a fifth of Subaru and about 5 percent of Mazda.
The three automakers said in the statement that their efforts would help decarbonize combustion engines by making them compatible with alternative fuel sources such as e-fuels and biofuels.
Carmakers are facing tougher emissions standards in markets such as the European Union, where policymakers are pursuing a set of rules known as ‘Euro 7’ that they hope to apply to cars and vans from 2030. They plan to ban the sale of new CO2-emitting cars from 2035. .
Toyota is taking a ‘multi-pathway’ approach to carbon neutrality by meeting the different needs in each of its markets by offering vehicles with a range of powertrains.
In the January-March period, the company sold about 2.4 million vehicles, almost two-fifths of which were gasoline-electric hybrids. Plug-in hybrid, fuel cell and fully battery-electric vehicles together accounted for just 2.9 percent.
Chairman Akio Toyoda said in January that electric cars would reach a global auto market share of up to 30 percent, with hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell cars and fuel-burning vehicles making up the rest.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: May 28, 2024 | 10:35 am IST