Good morning! It’s Friday, September 6, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
1st Gear: Toyota Cuts EV Production Targets
Toyota has already proven that its decision to focus on hybrid vehicles over fully-electric models is paying off. The company’s sales are booming as hybrid options like the Prius and Rav4 fly off forecourts and now, it’s knuckling down on that commitment to hybrid power by slashing its already low targets for electric vehicle sales.
The Camry maker reportedly cut its electric car production targets for 2026 by a third, according to a new report from Reuters. Toyota had initially been targeting output of 1.5 million EVs in 2026, but will now aim to produce around 1 million electric cars instead, as Reuters explains:
The world’s biggest automaker now plans to build 1 million EVs in 2026, compared with the company’s earlier announced sales target of 1.5 million, it said.
Toyota said in a statement there was no change to its intention to produce 1.5 million EVs per year by 2026 and 3.5 million by 2030. It said, however, that the figures were not targets but benchmarks for shareholders.
Producing even 1 million electric vehicles per year, however, represents an ambitious undertaking for Toyota, which has put far more effort into developing hybrids and sold only about 104,000 EVs last year. EVs currently account for about 1% of its global sales.
The automaker’s rollout of electric models has been far from smooth. Its first mass-produced EV here in America was the BZ4X created in collaboration with Subaru. Reviews were lukewarm, to say the least, and in Toyota’s latest results the company revealed that it had sold just 9,000 EVs so far this year.
Instead, its attention has seemingly always lay with hybrid options and even hydrogen power, with the automaker still selling the Mirai in California despite the dwindling number of filling stations across the state. Now, with hybrid cars offering a handy stopgap for people hesitant to make the switch to fully-electric power, the company’s reluctance to go all in on battery power is tricky to shake.
2nd Gear: NHTSA Ends General Motors Seatbelt Probe
It’s been a big year for probes and recalls across the U.S. auto industry with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration uncovering safety issues with everything from Ford cop cars to Tesla’s EVs. Now, the safety regulator has brought to a close an investigation into more than 1.3 million General Motors models over seat belt issues.
A probe into 1.3 million GM cars, trucks and SUVs has come to an end after more than 10 years, reports Automotive News. The probe looked at a failure that was uncovered in flexible steel seat belt anchor cables in the front seats of several models, as Automotive News reports:
The investigation covered the 2009-2014 GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse, and 2009-2010 Saturn Outlook SUVs.
This issue dates back to May 2014, when a recall of vehicles across these models was conducted because of concerns that the seat belt cables could weaken and separate over time with use.
GM’s remedy involved inspecting for signs of damage and replacing cables as needed. However, NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation received four reports from owners that the anchor cable separated without warning after the repairs.
In an investigation following the recall, NHTSA officers looked into whether the recall was effective at solving the issue, which could see seat belt connectors snap endangering the lives of the vehicle’s occupants. The investigators found that the failure rate was incredibly low, at just 0.141 incidents per thousand vehicles – meaning that of the 1.3 million impacted cars only around 180 were found to suffer from the defect.
What’s more, many of the impacted cars failed while they were parked and passengers were getting into their vehicles and buckling up. In these instances, they spotted the failure before setting out on the road.
3rd Gear: Even Europe Is Struggling With EV Adoption
Slowly but surely, electric vehicle adoption here in the U.S. is growing, with battery-powered cars accounting for more than seven percent of new car sales in July 2024. However, uptake here in America is often compared to Europe, where countries like Norway have seen an incredible rate of EV adoption.
Now, a new report has revealed that all may not be quite so rosy across the pond with automakers struggling to get new buyers behind the wheels of their all-singing, all-dancing electric vehicles, reports Bloomberg:
Volkswagen AG and Volvo Car AB this week scaled back grand ambitions to challenge Tesla Inc. and new Chinese rivals. The reasons for the setbacks are twofold: there aren’t enough affordable models to move past early adopters and the wealthy, and reduced government incentives have further sapped customer interest.
The result has been a sharp decline in sales. In July, deliveries of battery-powered cars fell more than 10% across the region, mainly due to a 37% plunge in Germany — the region’s biggest market. The development caught manufacturers off guard and led to a mismatch between investment plans and market realities.
The strategic shifts risk setting Europe back in the global battle for the future of the auto industry. While the path might be bumpy, there’s broad consensus that personal transport needs to shift away from fossil fuels to stem the worst effects of climate change.
Europeans aren’t only reluctant to buy electric cars, they’re also apparently reluctant to buy cars full stop. Auto sales across the bloc remain five percent down on pre-pandemic levels, while here in America the industry has largely bounced back from the effects of the pandemic and the ensuing supply chain issues that followed.
4th Gear: Japan Plows Billions Into New Battery Plants
While Europe may be falling out of love with EVs and America is going all in on hybrid power, Japan appears to be plowing ahead as planned with the country pledging an enormous new fund to support expansion of its EV production capacity going forward.
According to a new report from Reuters, lawmakers in Japan have greenlit a new round of funding worth an estimated $2.4 billion to support new battery production sites across the country:
The government will support 12 projects for storage batteries or those for their parts, materials or production equipment by up to 350 billion yen ($2.44 billion), Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ken Saito told reporters.
“We hope that these efforts will strengthen Japan’s storage battery supply chain and the storage battery industry’s competitiveness,” Saito said.
The move will help expand the country’s annual production capacity for storage batteries by around 50% to 120 gigawatt-hours (GWh), from 80 GWh currently, Japanese media reported earlier on Friday.
The funds will be split between projects from automakers like Toyota and Nissan, as well as tech giant Panasonic which has plans for an EV energy unit to be run in collaboration with Subaru and Mazda.
Japan’s latest funding aimed at improving its EV infrastructure follows another billion-dollar investment in the space last year, which also included funds to improve battery production across the country.