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- Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda says hybrids have lower carbon emissions than EVs
- Due to electricity generated from fossil fuels, making BEVs could lead to more carbon emissions.
- Toyota should focus on hybrids as it removes petrol-only powertrains from its lineup.
Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda has again stirred the electric vs. hybrid debate by saying hybrids are cleaner than EVs when factoring in region-specific electricity generation and scale.
While EVs reduce air pollution and are cleaner than hybrids, which still use a gasoline engine to power the wheels, the complexities arising from various regions regarding how they generate electricity take the debate into a new direction. Speaking to Autonews, Toyoda said: “If we were to have made 9 million BEVs in Japan, it would have actually increased the carbon emissions, not reduced them. That is because Japan relies on thermal power plants for electricity.”
He continued to say that in Japan, Toyota has sold nearly 27 million hybrid vehicles, and the carbon reduction at this scale is similar to 9 million BEVs sold. However, if Toyota had made 9 million BEVs in Japan, the carbon emissions would have increased and not decreased due to Japan relying on thermal power plants for electricity generation.
The chairman of Toyota was also vocal about carbon neutrality and said that acting now is most important, not setting targets. “When the term ‘carbon neutrality’ started to become popular, we set our target as a company, saying that for us, the enemy is carbon.”
“For us, the way that we thought about it is that we’re not going to contribute to carbon neutrality just by building BEVs, but we have to focus on things we can do now so that immediately we can reduce CO2 from the air,” he continued.
The Japanese giant uses a variety of powertrains, focusing on hybrids with its “multi-pathway” strategy. It also believes in a region-centric approach to electrification. Toyota was the first to introduce a hybrid back in 1997 with the groundbreaking Prius, and today, it has shifted to a hybrid-only range in markets like ours, Australia, where petrol-only options are removed.
Their bullish strategy on hybrids is paying off as hybrid car sales have outnumbered BEVs and even petrol cars in outright growth. Through the first three months of 2025, Australians bought 17,914 battery electric vehicles (BEVs), the lowest in two years (only 6.3 per cent of the total new car sales).
The glowing contrast is the hybrid sales numbers, where PHEV sales rose from 7,556 units in the December quarter to 13,698 units in March 2025. If looking at the total hybrid sales, considering vehicles like the top-selling Toyota RAV4, the number increased to 46,115 units in the first three months of 2025.
Hence, while the EV vs Hybrid debate rages on, the question also shifts to the importance of developing the EV infrastructure via cleaner energy sources, as coal still contributes most of the total electricity generation in Australia.
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