At Toyota Motor Europe’s (TME) annual Kenshiki event last week, a team of the company’s Global and European executives shared the company’s latest developments outlining its vision, technology strategy and revealing its latest products and services. Kenshiki means insight in Japanese and this year’s edition to an audience of over 250 media, focussed on carbon neutrality, and the ongoing transformation to a mobility provider.
Full carbon neutrality by 2040
Toyota Motor Europe announced its commitment to achieve full carbon neutrality in Europe by latest 2040.
Building on its undertaking last year to achieve 100% CO2 reduction in all new vehicles in the EU, UK and EFTA by 2035, TME’s direction was summarised by Matt Harrison, President & CEO of Toyota Motor Europe.
Broadly speaking, there are two key focus areas: the first is carbon neutrality and how we plan to achieve it in areas of our business, and the second, as we transition for a manufacturing and sales company to a provider of mobility services, is the future of mobility.
Matt Harrison, President & CEO of Toyota Motor Europe
Marvin Cooke, EVP Manufacturing of Toyota Motor Europe, further outlined the company’s objective of making all its European manufacturing facilities carbon neutral by 2030. In this area, the company’s approach is multi-faceted, minimising energy consumption wherever possible, switching to green energy and implementing numerous kaizen innovations which reduce CO2 or eliminate it entirely.
At our engine plant in Deeside in the UK we have installed solar panels equivalent to 10 football pitches while recycling over 90% of its waste to generate green energy and we expect to be carbon neutral as early as 2025. Towards 2040 for those activities outside of TME’s direct control, such as upstream supply and logistics, it’s a much bigger challenge and one we will achieve in close collaboration with our partners and suppliers.
Marvin Cooke, EVP Manufacturing of Toyota Motor Europe
‘The power of And’ – the science behind Toyota’s multi-technology strategy
Dr Gill Pratt, Chief Scientist of Toyota Motor Corporation and CEO of Toyota Research Institute provided practical insights into the hard science behind Toyota’s global approach to decarbonisation which utilises multiple electrified technologies to maximise carbon reduction by optimising the use of scarce resources. Toyota’s multi-technology strategy recognises the complementary benefits of both battery powered vehicles and those which run on hydrogen for zero emission mobility. Owing to the current short supply and high costs of battery materials and lack of infrastructure, it is better to use a combination of battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric and hybrid electric vehicles to reduce CO2 emissions over the next 10-15 years:
We must do what is best for the environment, which is to extract the most carbon reduction from each battery cell produced, replacing as many non-electrified vehicles as possible with electrified ones, guided by the simple principle that carbon is the enemy, not a particular powertrain.
Dr Gill Pratt, Chief Scientist of Toyota Motor Corporation and CEO of Toyota Research Institute
Toyota’s global strategy relates closely to meeting the diverse needs of its European customers with a line-up which includes battery electric and fuel-cell and hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles, as further explained by Kylie Jimenez, SVP – People, Technology & Corporate Affairs, Toyota Motor Europe
We call this the ‘power of And’ because rarely does one size fit all, especially when you consider the diversity of customer needs and infrastructure readiness.
Kylie Jimenez, SVP – People, Technology & Corporate Affairs, Toyota Motor Europe
Product power of TME’s electrified line-up driving growth
TME expects to sell around 1.1M vehicles in 2022, a small but important increase year-on-year in a European market which was down by -12%, and setting a new record market share of 7.3% up by +0.9% points year-on-year.
This momentum is driven by the product power of TME’s diverse electrified model range commanding an overall European mix of around 66% of total sales.
Woven Planet: Mobility to Love, Safety to Live
In its first presentation to European media, Woven Planet’s Dr James Kuffner explained its unique role in Toyota’s transition to a mobility company. Woven Planet’s mission statement of ‘Mobility to love, safety to live’.
We are creating new software platforms and tools, processes and a culture shift to software-defined development for Toyota. This will improve productivity by delivering software that allows for scalability and the reuse of code across hundreds of Toyota and Lexus models
Dr James Kuffner, CEO of Woven Planet Holdings & Chief Digital Officer of TMC
Woven Planet’s vision embraces three types of mobility – Mobility of People, Mobility of Goods and Mobility of Information, and this guides its key focus areas:
- Arene (‘Software First’) – the creation of new mobility technology provides the core DNA of Toyota’s mobility products and services with the design of software architecture before developing the hardware. Notably, Woven Planet’s ‘Arene’ software platform will provide the foundation for implementing Toyota’s Software Defined Architecture (SDA).
- Automated Driving & Advanced Safety (ADAS), responsible for Toyota Teammate and Lexus Teammate ‘Advanced Drive’ technology. In keeping with Toyota’s ‘Guardian’ approach to ADAS, it includes the continuous development of an array for enhanced safety and automated driving systems.
- Woven City – Dr Kuffner provided further insights into the role of Woven City, currently under construction near to Mt Fuji, Japan. When completed Woven City aspires to become a unique proving ground to accelerate innovation and deliver the world’s future mobility at scale. As a test track it will speed the development of mobility technology, smart agriculture, clean energy and healthy living all powered by software with security and privacy built-in to its design.
A series of Kenshiki product and technology deep dives followed the main meeting:
- New Lexus RZ450e battery electric SUV and Lexus Electrified Sport
- bZ Compact SUV Concept battery electric, one of 6 bZ BEVs developed on the e-TNGA platform which will be available in Europe
- C-HR prologue: The Bold Becomes Bolder – European premiere of the new Toyota C-HR prologue indicating the styling of the next generation C-HR.
- All new Prius plug-in hybrid
- Woven Planet Deep Dive
SOURCE: Toyota
