According to foreign media reports, Toyota will launch a pure electric small car in China at the end of next year and will seek key technologies from local partner BYD. The two sides will produce a new model with reasonable price and spacious space.
Toyota has been working for years to develop a small electric car that is cost-competitive in the Chinese market without compromising comfort, according to two of the people familiar with the matter. Sources said that this breakthrough is mainly due to BYD's lithium iron phosphate (LFP) blade battery.
When Warren Buffett (Warren Buffett) bought a 10 per cent stake in BYD in 2008, the deal made headlines and BYD became one of the world's largest makers of new energy vehicles.
Toyota's electric car with BYD will be slightly larger than the Corolla (Corolla) in terms of size, according to a source. It will be unveiled as a concept car at the Beijing auto show in April and is likely to be introduced as the second model of Toyota's new bZ pure electric series, but the new car will only be sold in China for the time being.
"the new car will use BYD's battery technology, which has more or less helped us solve some challenges, such as providing spacious interior space while keeping prices low," a source said. " Its positioning will be lower than Tesla's Model Y or Weilai's ES6, but higher than the ultra-low-cost Hongguang Mini. The price of the new car is likely to be less than 200000 yuan (about $30, 000).
"We will not comment on future products," a Toyota spokesman said. Toyota believes that pure electric vehicles are a way to help us achieve carbon neutrality, and the company will also be involved in the development of all types of electric vehicle solutions. " A spokesman for BYD declined to comment.
Toyota turned to BYD to develop affordable electric cars, a move that shows that the balance of the global auto industry has tilted over the past decade. Previously, it was widely believed that Chinese cars were of poor quality, so foreign carmakers were not worried that they would not be able to compete with Chinese cars in price. Now, however, Chinese car companies have ushered in great changes. In 2015, BYD launched the plug-in hybrid Tang, which has made great progress in shape, quality and performance, and what worries Toyota senior officials most is that Tang's price is about 30% cheaper than Toyota's similar model.
In 2017, Toyota's engineering chief, including then executive vice president Shigeki Terashi, tested several BYD cars, including Tang, near its headquarters in Japan. Terashi then visited BYD's headquarters in Shenzhen and test-drove a prototype of the company's electric car Han. A source involved in the test drive said: "although the long-term quality of BYD cars is still a question mark, the design and quality of these cars show a very mature level, and they are much cheaper than Toyota models." We were all startled by this. "
Toyota set up a research and development joint venture with BYD last year after seeing its progress, two sources said. Currently, Toyota has more than 20 engineers working side by side with about 100 BYD counterparts in Shenzhen.
Toyota is facing criticism, with environmental groups saying it is not fully committed to achieving zero emissions. The environmental groups say Toyota is more interested in hybrid technology. Toyota executives say they are not opposed to pure electric technology, but they don't think pure electric vehicles can really cut carbon emissions until renewable energy becomes more widespread.
However, Toyota has set up a unit in Japan to focus on zero-emission cars, and a division called ZEV Factory is developing safer and lower-cost battery technology, including solid-state batteries, that will greatly extend the range of electric vehicles.
Toyota has long argued that electric cars should not be developed at the expense of comfort, but the company has never been able to produce such cars. One of the problems they face is that the battery is so bulky that the space inside the car will be affected after it is placed under the car, and the way to solve this problem is to raise the height of the roof. It is for this reason that many small electric cars are SUV.
In 2018, Toyota briefly discussed the idea of a battery joint venture with BYD. That and subsequent interaction exposed Toyota engineers to BYD's LFP blade battery. They call the battery "game-changing technology" because it not only costs less, but also frees up space in the car. In 2020, BYD officially released the blade battery.
LFP batteries have a lower energy density than most other types of lithium-ion batteries, but they are cheaper, more durable, less prone to overheating, and LFP batteries do not need cobalt and nickel. In the Chinese market, Tesla also began to use LFP batteries on the entry-level versions of Model 3 and Model Y.
A source said that the thickness of the blade battery pack is about 10 centimeters, which is about 5 to 10 centimeters thinner than the ternary lithium battery pack. A BYD spokesman said the thickness was possible, depending on how the carmaker placed the blade battery pack in the vehicle.
Although Toyota has not fully cracked the way BYD keeps costs low, two sources believe that an important factor is BYD's simple and flexible design and quality control process. In the view of some Toyota engineers, this is "cutting corners".
Toyota's product planning process is more rigorous and thorough, and once the company has identified technologies, components and systems during the three to four years of development of a car, they rarely change their designs, sources said. In the process, Toyota usually makes three design prototypes and three manufacturing prototypes. Some prototype cars need to travel 150000 kilometers to ensure quality and reliability when testing the durability of emissions or poor road conditions. BYD usually only makes two prototypes, and can still change the design two years after the start of the development process, which is absolutely not allowed at Toyota. A BYD spokesman declined to comment.
However, BYD's development approach also has its advantages. When it finally goes on sale, BYD's technology is more advanced than Toyota's, and often the price is lower. All four sources believe that advances in simulation and virtual engineering, as well as the ability to produce a large number of components themselves, have helped BYD close the gap with Toyota in terms of quality and reliability. "the challenge for Toyota now is whether we should negate this approach by thinking that BYD's engineering approach is too loose and risky, or should we learn from it," one of them said. "
