The Toyota Corporation has now announced that electric vehicles (EVs) don’t make financial sense at this point. Toyota Vice Chair Takeshi Uchiyamada, also head of Toyota Research and Development, announced in Japan that the company was ending plans for a volume launch of its second all-electric car, the eQ. Uchiyamada said that Toyota hopes for only 2,600 sales worldwide of its other EV, a RAV4 version, over the next three years. “The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs or how it takes a long time to charge,” said Uchiyamada, who spearheaded Toyota’s development of the Prius hybrid in the 1990s. Toyota also has just begun a new advertising campaign for its Prius family of hybrids in the United States, showing them traversing a pristine landscape and emphasizing that there’s a right Prius for everyone. And as Forbes Magazine noted, “By implication, a right EV for just about no one.” In August 2009, President Barack Obama went to Elkhart County, Ind., to announce $2.4 billion in grants “to develop the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks powered by the next generation of batteries.” Read more: http://www.mndaily.com/2012/10/02/toyota-announces-plan-end-launch-second-all-electric-car
