Toyota chairman and racing driver Akio Toyoda has always been brutally honest about the auto industry, especially since he stepped down as the company’s CEO. His most recent sentiments about electric vehicles echo that of many enthusiasts — that he prefers internal combustion engines for sports cars and that EV racing is not exciting.
In an interview with Automotive News, Toyoda commented on the future of sports cars at the company that bears his family name. “There will always be people inside Toyota passionate about developing electric sports cars,” he remarked. “But for me as the master driver, my definition of a sports car is something with the smell of gasoline and a noisy engine.”
Toyoda attained the title of “master driver” under tutelage of former Toyota master driver Hiromu Naruse, who was responsible for the company’s most powerful sports cars. While serving as CEO and chariman, Akio Toyoda has driven and Toyota and Lexus race cars in a number of at events, ranging from Rally Japan to the 24 Hours of Nürburgring.
Despite his love for racing, however, he has no interest in an EV series. Due to long battery charging times, races would shift focus toward resource management and pit strategies rather than driving. “It’s not exciting,” he told AN. “Because you won’t be able to go around the circuit for more than an hour. The kind of races I enter are mostly endurance races, so with the current BEVs, it’s not going to be a race of the cars. It’s a race of charging time or battery exchange or something.”
That doesn’t mean Toyota will never make an EV sports car. “Toyota is a mass-production brand, so we also need to think about affordability, even with BEVs,” he explained. “Once Toyota has the capacity to offer affordable BEVs, then maybe that’s a moment when I as a master driver will be introducing a BEV sports car.”
As for making EV racing interesting, Toyoda said, “The next master driver will have to take on that challenge. That’s their job.”
… Its also because its given the reasons why Japan’s automotive industry have tried to look at the expansion of electric vehicles (EV) overseas and thus find it as a stumbling block for it (Japan’s car industry), as we have instead find that in Honda and Nissan for examples – the latter of which have seen it with the Leaf since it was introduced in 2011, Toyota may have been find it clever that they would become the only living Japanese carmaker to survive in the future if its homegrown “rivals” (as well as Toyota’s properties like Hino Motors, Daihatsu, Yamaha Motor, Subaru, Mazda, Suzuki and Isuzu) were instead sold to Stellantis and have them go bankrupt for good. (Like when General Motors / GM, the former parent company of Subaru, Suzuki, Isuzu and Opel / Vauxhall as well as Saab, had put the favor to remove and replace Daewoo with the Chevrolet / Chevy name as putting all of Toyota’s domestic rivals out of business at the hands of PSA Peugeot Citroen and Fiat SpA’s succesor company is particularly a prize for enhancing / increasing the Jeep marque in Asia and Oceania then.)
As for Toyota’s future in performance cars, with the addition of its chairman being a fierce critic of oil-free vehicles (EVs to say), therefore as while its European (not Teutonic) peers Renault Group and Stellantis are already been committed to switch to electric by between 2030s-2040s, the impact of Trump 47’s tarrifs and expansion / success of South Korea’s soft power are already in place means that Toyota may have did business deals with Renault and former PSA / FCA in exchange for Toyota to acquire shares in Renault and Stellantis – thus as given with memories of product recalls and vice versa (VV) means Toyota in turn would redrawn its cars’ blueprints with a mixture of Renault and former PSA / FCA engineering.
Not only its given that Peugeot and Renault are were deeply known for diesel engines in passenger cars, but also had Toyota either buy shares or collaborate with two of Europe’s biggest non-German carmakers may suggest that sports cars that are were in production / existence like Celica, Supra and MR2 would have been remodeled as being a blend of Renault and former PSA / Fiat SpA engineering… (For examples, Celica would turn as a Renault Captur-Peugeot 2008-Citroen C5 mashup fighting against Skoda Fabia, Supra ends up as a midship and boxer-engined Japanese version of Renault Alpine GTA aka Renault GTA in UK and MR2 ends up becoming a cross-breed between the modern-day Alpine A110 and those of Stellantis via Alfa Romeo and Maserati…)
He is speaking as a representative of his age of motoring. My son who is 30 and a car enthusiast does not have the same legacy feelings about ICE vs EV as I do (I’m over 60). He fully expects that he will own an EV sports car in the future. As my wife says, its all about the noise when it comes to men and their sports cars, which I see as the main argument for why people of my generation (over 50) do not like EV sports cars. Everything will change when the first Miata like EV hits the market; affordable, lightweight, and fun to drive. As for racing its all about winning. There will always be a vintage class for ICE cars but the future will be EV racing as batteries last longer (or battery swapping becomes a thing).
I know it is an opinion not much people share with me yet, but I have beef with pretty much everything he said…
Needing the smell of gasoline and a noisy engine makes me think of people still holding on to claiming their carburettors are the best while the whole world went to injection-fed engines. It is fun, different and nostalgic, they have their place in older cars, but if only noise and smell is what makes a sports car, and not driving feelings, not connection to the car, that makes the Toyota Avalon a sports car? I guess he targets electric sports SUVs, which are stupid fast in straight line but somewhat useless when cornering. I hope sports SUVs, elec and gas, are a fad and true sports car will come back.
For racing, I get that he prefers endurance racing, but most races I actually saw were an hour-long at most, and often shorter. Pit strategy is actually an exciting part of endurance racing, but I completely agree it would be boring with EVs.
I would really much like to see a true EV sports car be brought to market, one engineered toward driving fun instead of two-tons trucks with bonkers acceleration. In my mind, and I feel like I am echoing Mazda, it is the connection between the driver and the car, the reward one gets to pilot it right that makes a sports car, and you can make it with an EV. No waiting for your automatic-only car to shift to the right gear, no paddling from 6th to 3rd one gear at a time, no gutless lower revs or waiting for the turbo to come into boost, you want power, your foot gives you predictable power, every time and at every speed. Without traction control, EVs torque make it easy to break traction, even my lowly former Leaf could do it. It is not the same, it will not vroom vroom, but if you make it fun, it will be fun!
No I only have to convince the former Toyota head-honcho. Wish me luck?
That said, I have to admit that I actually have his exact opinion when it comes to motorbikes… I need that vroom vroom, the smell, the vibrations, the heat from the engine, and riding an hour or two at a time between highway charging stations does not correspond to my use.
This is one of the reasons why I appreciate Akio-san.
Some forms of racing are indeed a development route for manufacturers to test and innovate. That I love and appreciate. However, there should be a separation between development racing and competition racing.
Having tried the privateer/sole proprietor route, it is almost impossible to be competitive, as it does truly boil down to being a team sport. It doesnt really matter if it is time attack, rally, drag racing, endurance, etc, the costs and stakes will always be high, but this is the turning point of innovation.
I commend Toyota as a manufacturer for testing and making continuous improvements on their Hydrogen Fuel Cell.
With all the efforts and support from Toyota, Porsche, Sebastian Vettel, the idea of synthetic fuel becoming more and more feasible, I don’t believe that EV cars will be “the future” at least within my lifetime.
I really appreciate the civil discussion in the comments here compared to other sites.
I would happily get an EV to commute to work, run errands, do typical daily driver stuff… I think most people would feel the same if they had one, even if they’re opposed to the idea of electric cars for whatever reason. The idea of no gas, no oil changes, no timing belts, etc… sounds incredible. But I agree with Toyoda. The things I personally find interesting about cars don’t exist in EVs. I don’t know if I could ever see them as anything more as an appliance for getting from A to B, no matter the insane power figures or silly gimmicks. If I had an EV as a daily driver, I would always have a gas car (and several bikes) to actually have fun with, work on, and enjoy.
Well.. they need to figure out how to make a light EV sports car work, because Toyotas ICE offerings are rapidly becoming unobtainable in parts of the world that are pushing hard on average CO2 or even the UK with its ZEV mandate.
Pragmatically, if sports cars are to have a long term future at all, folks like Akio Toyoda need to get over it and focus their energies on it. Classics and Nostalgics are nice, but we need new things to keep car enthusiasm alive.
Maybe he needs to start looking to disciplines like hillclimb, rallycross and motocross instead of GT racing for inspiration.