BYD’s Han tram. (Getty)
BEIJING – Toyota Motor Corp will launch an all-electric compact sedan in China late next year, turned to local partner BYD for key technology to eventually create an affordable but still widespread turnaround, four sources told Reuters.
Two out of four people with knowledge of the matter described the car as a holy grail to Toyota has struggled for years to find a small electric vehicle that is both cost-competitive in China and without compromising on comfort.
Sources say the breakthrough is mainly due to BYD’s less bulky Lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) Blades. the battery and its lower-cost engineering know-how – a turning point for a Chinese company whose famous F3 saloon was inspired by Toyota’s Corolla back in 2005.
Little known outside of China at the time, BYD or “Build Your Dreams” made headlines in 2008 when Warren Buffett bought a 10% stake and has since become one of the makers of so-called methods The world’s largest new energy facility. .
Toyota’s new EV will be slightly larger than its compact model Corolla, of the world best selling car All Time. Think of it as “a Corolla with a larger rear seat,” says one source.
It will be announced as a car model in Beijing car show in April and beyond will most likely be launched as the second model in Toyota’s new bZ series of all-electric cars, although it will only be sold in China for now.
“The vehicle is powered by BYD battery technology,” one of the sources told Reuters. “It more or less helped us solve the challenges we faced in creating an affordable compact electric sedan with a spacious interior.”
It will be placed under premium EVs such as Tesla’s Model Y or the Nio ES6 but on top of the ultra-cheap Hong Guang Mini EV, which starts at just $4,500 and is currently China’s best-selling product. tram.
Two of the four sources, all of whom declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the new Toyota will be competitively priced.
One said it will likely sell for less than 200,000 yuan ($30,000), targeting the Chinese market segment that Tesla expects to target with a small car within the next two years.
“We do not comment on future products,” a Toyota spokesperson said. “Toyota sees battery electric vehicles as one of the avenues for us to achieve carbon neutrality and is involved in the development of all kinds of electric vehicle solutions.”
A BYD spokesperson declined to comment.
‘All kinda floored’
Toyota’s forced switch to using BYD to solve the low-cost electric car conundrum shows how much the global auto industry’s competitive balance has fallen over the past decade.
When the quality of Chinese cars is seen as below par, global automakers are not too concerned that they cannot compete on price and let Chinese companies control the domestic market for those cars. cheap car, no frills.
But times have changed.
Toyota executives started to worry again in 2015 when BYD launched Tang dip into the mixture, with significant improvements in style, quality and performance. Most worrisome is the fact it’s still about 30% cheaper than comparable Toyota models.
There was an important turning point for the event in 2017 when Toyota’s top engineering leaders, including then-executive vice president Shigeki Terashi, drove a number of BYD vehicles like the Tang at The company’s demonstration area is in Toyota City near its headquarters in Japan.
Terashi then visited BYD’s headquarters in Shenzhen and drove a Han electric vehicle.
“Their long-term quality is still a question mark, but the design and quality of the cars on display levels of maturity, but they are much cheaper than comparable Toyota models,” said one of the four sources who took part in the test drive.
“We were all vilified by that.”
Two of the sources said the BYD reviews prompted Toyota to form a research and development (R&D) joint venture with BYD last year. Toyota currently has two dozen engineers in Shenzhen working in tandem with about 100 BYD partners.
Tongue Winner
Toyota’s new EV comes at a time when it is under criticism from environmental groups, who maintain it’s zero commitment emissions. They say Toyota is more interested in prolonging the commercial usefulness of its successful hybrid technology.
Toyota executives say they’re not against battery electric vehicles (BEVs) but argue that until renewables are more widely available, they won’t be the silver bullet to cut emissions. carbon emissions.
However, Toyota has set up a dedicated zero-emissions car manufacturing division in Japan called ZEV Factory and is developing safer and lower-cost battery technologies, including state-of-the-art lithium-ion cells. Solid state will significantly increase the operating range of the EV.
Although Toyota has long advocated a comfort-free ride as the best way to popularize the BEV, it has struggled to produce such a vehicle.
One problem stems from having to stow bulky, heavy batteries under the floor, as they eat up the interior unless the hood is raised too – which is why many smaller electric vehicles are cars. SUVs.
In 2018, Toyota briefly explored the idea of a battery joint venture with BYD. That and subsequent interactions led Toyota engineers to come across BYD’s LFP Blade battery. They describe it as a game changer as it is both cheaper and frees up space.
“It’s a kind of ‘scale fell out of my eye’ technology that we initially dismissed because its design was too simple,” one of the four sources said.
BYD officially launches Blade battery in 2020.
LFP batteries have a lower energy density than most other lithium-ion cells but are cheaper, have a longer shelf life, are less prone to overheating, and don’t use cobalt or nickel. Tesla used LFP batteries in Model 3 and Model Y in China.
One of the sources said the typical Blade pack is about 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) thick when the modules are laid flat on the floor, about 5 centimeters to 10 centimeters thinner than other lithium-ion packs.
That’s entirely possible, depending on how an automaker packs the Blade into a vehicle, a BYD spokesperson said.
Cut corners?
While Toyota has yet to fully address the question of how BYD will continue to be so low-cost, two of the sources said one factor could be abbreviated and flexible design and quality assurance processes. quality – which some Toyota engineers consider difficult.
Toyota’s planning process is much more rigorous and thorough, sources say. Once it has decided on technology, components and systems early in the three- to four-year development process of an automobile, it rarely changes the design.
During this process, Toyota typically makes three design prototypes and three production prototypes. Some are driven around 150,000 km (93,000 miles) for bulletproof quality and reliability when tested for emissions or bad road endurance.
At BYD, engineers make far fewer prototypes – usually just two – and designs can be changed as late as two years in the process, which is an integral part of Toyota, a source news said. A BYD spokesperson declined to comment.
But the result of those last-minute changes is that the technology in the BYD car is much more up-to-date than the Toyota car when it hits the market, and often cheaper.
Four sources say further advances in simulation and virtual engineering know-how, as well as BYD manufacturing its own range of components, have helped it close the potential gap in quality and reliability. Reliability can stem from such last minute design changes.
“Our challenge at Toyota is whether we dismiss the way BYD engineering is loose and too risky, or whether we can learn from it,” one of the sources said. said.
