It seems that the hybrid-first strategy has been working pretty well for them. (The 2026 RAV4s are hybrid-only with no ICE-only options, AIUI.)
"But look at Tesla market cap!!!"
Toyota had the right intuition: focus on EVs when the global sales will make sense for it, meanwhile avoid throwing good money after bad like most legacy automakers did with EVs.
Notably, the Venza was discontinued after the 2024 model year and those sales figures represent inventory leftover from prior years.
Avoiding EV fomo when the market wasn't there was a good calculated risk.
Toyota did make a BEV, too. FOMO?
The car producer that still seems to think hydrogen is the future? The armchair internet analysts seem closer to correct.
Americans and American companies often hold onto technologies long after they are clearly done for in the belief that hope and marketing and stubborn refusal to let go of some romantic view that gas stations and loud noisy slow devices that require constant maintenance are cool.
Toyota and others are rightly betting the American taste will be slow to swing, that our leadership is spineless and has no forward vision, and that they can keep monetizing old technology. What they are getting wrong is the inexorable force of economic and technological reality will strangle ICE manufacturers in a slow then sudden death. BYD, MG, etc are r through the regulatory grind while building their production and logistical capacity. Once they can penetrate the US market veil it’ll be over for Ford, GM, Toyota, and others. Tesla will have to cut margin so fast it’ll be dizzying.
If you’ve driven these Chinese EVs you’ll know the writing is on the wall, and as these legacy automakers cancel their last gasp attempt to be relevant in the future, they’ve ended their role in world manufacturing in the quixotic notion that hope is a strategy.
EV sales have fallen YoY in North America.