‘In the long term there will be enough’
According to Gill Pratt, head of Toyota’s research arm, there are not enough resources for a mass transition to electric driving in the short term. In various parts of the world, it will take decades before sufficient raw materials and infrastructure are available to replace all cars with EVs, he argues. A rapid transition to global electric driving would be unrealistic and initially counterproductive.
For the time being, Toyota will continue to divide its attention between the development of the technology for fully electric cars, hybrid models and cars with a hydrogen cell. One of the reasons for this is the – as yet – limited availability of battery raw materials and green energy. As a result, according to Gill Pratt, head of Toyota’s research arm, it is not realistic or sustainable to develop EVs alone in the short term. In order to achieve a global reduction in emissions for the time being, attention must also be paid to hybrid and fuel cell cars, Reuters notes based on Pratt’s words.
According to Pratt, the industry must ensure that many drivers hold on to their older, ‘dirtier’ cars for longer, as mass electric driving is now unrealistic in many parts of the world. Hybrid powertrains can help prevent that. Pratt also indicates that it will take decades before the mining, charging infrastructure and green energy generation for and around the world are sufficient. In the short term, there are insufficient raw materials for all the necessary batteries, insufficient charging stations and insufficient green energy, he claims.
In the long term, Pratt considers the fully electric car to be the sustainable alternative, because it is predicted that the items mentioned will then be sufficiently available. He mentions Norway as a country in which an EV is already ‘green’, but points out that the green energy supply and infrastructure in many countries are still far from adequate. In addition, insufficient raw materials are currently being extracted to supply the entire world with EVs on the same scale as is currently happening in Norway. In order to also reduce the average CO2 emissions of the fleet during the bridging period, Toyota is focusing on fuel cells and hybrid powertrains. According to Toyota, EVs are “an important, but not the only, answer to climate change for now.”
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl