LAS VEGAS – Toyota Motor is standing by its electrical car technique, together with hybrids just like the Prius, following criticism by some traders and environmentalist teams that the corporate is transitioning too slowly to EVs.

Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, who has constructed a company technique round the concept EVs aren’t the one answer for automakers to succeed in carbon neutrality, mentioned Thursday the corporate will transfer ahead with plans to supply an array of so-called electrified automobiles for the foreseeable future – starting from hybrids and plug-ins to all-electric and hydrogen electrical automobiles.

“The whole lot goes to be as much as the purchasers to resolve,” he mentioned by a translator throughout a small media roundtable, a day after addressing the corporate’s Toyota sellers at their annual convention in Las Vegas.

Toyoda addressed the necessity to persuade skeptics of the corporate’s technique, together with authorities officers focusing laws on all-electric battery automobiles, saying the automaker will “current the onerous information” about client adoption and all the environmental affect of manufacturing EVs in contrast with hybrid electrified automobiles.

Because the Prius launched in 1997, Toyota says it has bought greater than 20 million electrified automobiles worldwide. The corporate says these gross sales have averted 160 million tons of CO2 emissions, which is the equal to the affect of 5.5 million all-electric battery automobiles.

Toyoda’s remarks echoed feedback he made to 1000’s of Toyota sellers and workers on Wednesday, saying the corporate will play “with all of the playing cards within the deck” and provide a wide-array of automobiles for all clients.

“That is our technique and we’re sticking to it,” Toyoda, who has described himself as a “automobile man or automobile nerd,” mentioned in a recording of the remarks proven to reporters.

Toyoda doubled down on firm expectations that all-electric car adoption will “take longer to grow to be mainstream” than many assume. He mentioned it is going to be “troublesome” to meet latest laws that decision for banning conventional automobiles with inside combustion engines by 2035, like California and New York have mentioned they may undertake.

Toyota executives, whereas growing investments in all-electric automobiles, have argued such vehicles and vans are one answer, not the answer, to satisfy tightening world emissions requirements and obtain carbon neutrality. Toyota continues to spend money on various options in addition to hybrid automobiles such because the Prius, which mix EV know-how with conventional inside combustion engines.

The corporate has mentioned its technique is justified, as not all areas of the world will undertake EVs on the identical tempo as a result of excessive price of the automobiles in addition to a scarcity of infrastructure.

Toyota’s technique has been criticized by environmental teams such because the Sierra Membership and Greenpeace, which has ranked the Japanese automaker on the backside of its auto-industry decarbonization rating the previous two years.

Toyota plans to take a position roughly $70 billion in electrified automobiles, together with $35 billion in all-electric battery applied sciences over the 9 years. It plans to supply about 70 electrified fashions globally by 2025.

Toyota plans to promote about 3.5 million all-electric automobiles yearly by 2030, which might solely be round a 3rd of its present annual gross sales.