Electric Cars Shine at Tokyo Auto Show

Takero Kato, a leader at Toyota for electric cars, wanted to make a strong point at the Tokyo auto show. The show is called the Tokyo Mobility Show, and it’s happening until November 5th. They are showing lots of electric cars there.

Mazda has a sportscar that runs on electricity and has a special engine. Honda has a sportscar concept too. Toyota has an electric car called Lexus, which they’ll sell in 2026.

People who write about cars got to see these cars before regular people. But American car companies like General Motors and Ford aren’t showing their cars at this event. American cars are not very popular in Japan.

Some other foreign car companies, like Mercedes-Benz from Germany and BYD from China, are at the show too.

Toyota admits it’s not doing as well as some other companies in making electric cars. They’ve been really good at making hybrid cars, like the Prius, which use both gasoline and electricity. They have a small electric car called C+pod and another one called bZ4X, but they want to make more.

The new Lexus electric car is important for Toyota. It will show if they can do well in the electric car business. Electric cars are still not very common, but they’re getting more popular because of climate change.

In Japan, less than 5% of cars are electric. In the U.S., it’s less than 10%, but they want to make it 54% by 2030. In China, one out of every three cars is electric.

Tesla, a big American electric car company, delivered a lot of cars last year. So did BYD from China. But Toyota sold fewer electric cars than both of them. They want to sell a lot more in the future.

A car executive from Toyota said they want to work with their customers to make a future with more electric cars.

But it’s not easy for Toyota to catch up with other companies. A car expert named Joshua Cobb thinks Chinese and American companies like Tesla are doing well right now. Japanese people like to buy cars from Japanese companies, so they might wait for more Japanese electric cars to come out.

Nissan, another Japanese car company, is showing four electric car ideas, including one that can drive itself. They are also using new technology to make cars faster.

Electric cars are different from regular cars because they use batteries and motors instead of gasoline. This makes them handle better and have more space inside. They work well for sports cars, vans, pickups, and SUVs.

But there are still challenges with electric cars. It takes time to charge the batteries, and they can’t go as far as gasoline cars. Some companies are working on making charging faster, but one company called Ample has a different idea. They want to swap the batteries in the car for fully charged ones. It only takes five minutes.

This is already happening in the United States for Uber drivers, and it’s coming to Japan soon. Ample says this is better for the environment because they can use renewable energy to charge the batteries.

John de Souza, the president of Ample, thinks this is a good solution because it’s like filling up with gasoline, but it’s much faster.