Toyota boss: Most vehicle plants will have to move abroad for shift to electric
Tony Walker has issued a dire economic warning over planned anti-petrol and diesel car and van legislation
The managing director of Toyota Motor Manufacturing says stringent government targets for electric vehicles could push manufacturing plants overseas.
It comes in the wake of the government’s plan to ban the sale of all new conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040.
Speaking at a business, energy and industrial strategy select committee meeting yesterday, Tony Walker said that even though Toyota had invested heavily in the UK, planned government legislation due to be imposed in 2040 could be too much for British manufacturers to deal with.
Highlighting the “huge challenge” of changing a production base from combustion engines to batteries and motors, he said: “There are not enough plants in this country to require that sort of investment, which means the majority will have to be exported. We’ll have to compete against other countries which are already further ahead.”
He also admitted that the current targets for electric vehicles could render cars currently on forecourts useless. “Toyota has committed and invested heavily in the UK, but the current 2040 target could make today’s vehicles unsaleable,” he said.
The Toyota boss sat alongside the electric vehicle director for Nissan, Gareth Dunsmore and Ian Robertson, member of the board of management at BMW.
However, Dunsmore believed that the issue lay with consumer education, saying: “The main barrier from the customer’s perspective is perception – we need to educate our customer base in what is really possible with an EV.”
