Toyota Motor Corp is to launch an all-electric small sedan in China late next year, having turned to local partner BYD Co (比亞迪) for key technology to finally make an affordable yet roomy runaround, four sources said.
Two of the four people with knowledge of the matter described the car as an electric holy grail for Toyota, which has struggled for years to come up with a small electric vehicle (EV) that is competitive on cost in China and does not compromise on comfort.
The sources said the breakthrough was chiefly down to BYD’s less bulky lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) Blade batteries and its lower-cost engineering know-how — a turning of the tables for a Chinese company whose popular F3 saloon was inspired by Toyota’s Corolla back in 2005.
Photo: Reuters
Little known outside China at the time, BYD, or “Build Your Dreams,” hit the headlines in 2008 when Warren Buffett bought a 10 percent stake and it has since become one of the biggest manufacturers of so-called new energy vehicles in the world.
Toyota’s new EV would be slightly bigger than its compact Corolla, the world’s best-selling car of all time.
It is to be unveiled as a concept car at the Beijing auto show in April and will then most likely be launched as the second model in Toyota’s new bZ series of all-electric cars, even though it will only be on sale in China for now.
“The car was enabled by BYD battery technology,” one of the sources said. “It has more or less helped us resolve challenges we had faced in coming up with an affordable small electric sedan with a roomy interior.”
It would be pitched below premium EVs, such as Tesla’s Model Y or the Nio ES6, but above the ultra-cheap Hong Guang Mini EV, which starts at just US$4,500 and is now China’s best-selling EV.
Two of the four sources, all of whom declined to be named because they are not authorized to speak to the media, said the new Toyota would be priced competitively.
One said it would likely sell for under 200,000 yuan (US$31,400), aiming for a segment of the Chinese market Tesla is expected to target with a small car within the next two years.
“We don’t comment on future products,” a Toyota spokesperson said. “Toyota considers battery electric vehicles as one path to help us get to carbon neutrality and is engaged in the development of all types of electrified vehicle solutions.”
A BYD spokesperson declined to comment.
Two of the sources said the BYD evaluations pushed Toyota to create its research and development (R&D) joint venture with BYD last year. Toyota now has two dozen engineers in Shenzhen working side-by-side with about 100 BYD counterparts.
BYD officially launched its Blade battery last year.
LFP batteries have a lower energy density than most other lithium-ion cells, but are cheaper, have a longer shelf-life, are less prone to overheating and do not use cobalt or nickel. Tesla already uses LFP batteries in its Model 3 and Model Y in China.
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS