Toyota Chairman Says Electric Cars Will Fail to Dominate Market

The chairman of Toyota threw cold water on enthusiasts of wide-scale EV adoption by predicting that EVs would never gain more than 30 percent of the market.

Toyota president Akio Toyoda gestures at a briefing on EV (electric vehicle) battery strategies at the companys showroom in Tokyo on December 14, 2021. (Photo by Behrouz MEHRI / AFP) Photo by BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP via Getty Images

Toyota’s chairman and former CEO, Akio Toyoda, said that fully electric vehicles (EV) will never manage to capture more than a third of the market and that governments shouldn’t push them on a reluctant public.

Mr. Toyoda made the remarks during a Jan. 23 company Q&A session, in which he said that peoples’ individual choices—and not regulations or taxpayer-funded subsidies—should be what drives EV adoption.