Toyota Is Debating Whether to Go Hybrid-Only, Exec Says
Toyota may have gotten the jump on other automakers with its legendary Prius hybrid, but in the decades since that car launched, the brand has relinquished its lead in the electrification games, letting other automakers take the lead into electric vehicles while spreading hybrids throughout its lineup.
And that devotion to hybrid technology may soon mean an end to internal-combustion vehicles without electric assistance from the automaker. In the near future, the entire North American Lexus and Toyota lineup may be exclusively hybrid, company executives recently told Reuters.
"Going forward, we plan to evaluate, carline by carline, whether going all-hybrid makes sense," David Christ, head of sales and marketing for Toyota in North America, told Reuters.
Such a move falls in line with Toyota's previous commitment to offer multiple pathways for buyers in the future, including battery-electric vehicles, hybrid-electric vehicles, and even hydrogen fuel-cell models.
Toyota says these evaluations will come as each model gets in line for a redesign, if not sooner. Notably, Toyota's bread-and-butter RAV4 is reportedly set for an overhaul for the 2026 model year, and Reuters says the automaker is questioning whether the gas-only powertrain will remain — especially when the existing, hard-to-come-by hybrid models account for nearly half of sales. Reuters's reporting says that Toyota executives are likely to decide to make the RAV4 hybrid-only for the North American market, but that the final decision has yet to be made. We're also likely to receive a plug-in hybrid Corolla in the States come 2027, according to Reuters.
The decision to offer a hybrid-only RAV4 wouldn't be particularly shocking, seeing as the current Camry, Sienna, and Land Cruiser are solely offered with hybrid powertrains. Still, according to Reuters, many upcoming models are set to be plug-in hybrids, using a bigger battery than in the likes of the aforementioned vehicles. For these PHEVs, Toyota reportedly may focus on building EV-specific platforms and augment them with smaller engines, rather than attempting to wedge a large battery into an existing ICE platform.
"(Hybrids) will buy them more time and give Toyota flexibility over how fast and how many EVs they'd have to roll out," Katsuhiko Hirose, a retired Toyota powertrain manager, said to Reuters. "They wouldn't feel pinned against the wall to produce EVs."
With new emissions standards set to take effect for model year 2027 here in the U.S., hybridizing its entire lineup could help Toyota comply with stricter pollution limits and buy the company time to develop more all-electric models. Toyota plans to convert 30 percent of its fleet into battery-electric vehicles by 2030, investing more than $35 billion into these all-electric models over the next six years. To this end, Toyota is in the process of opening a 14-production-line, 30-gigawatt-hours North Carolina battery plant by 2030.
If Toyota does phase out conventional ICE powerplants in favor of hybrids, from a pricing standpoint, the effect on consumers should be minimal. The average Toyota hybrid costing about $2,000 more than its gasoline-only sibling, where both options are available;; Toyota's plug-in hybrids tend to cost around $5,000–$6,000 more than their internal combustion doppelgangers, though sticker prices should decrease as production is streamlined.
Hybridization adds efficiency and performance to typical road-going models, but this impending move from Toyota does leave us with questions about how the company will handle its performance models; as of the 2025 model year, the only Toyotas in the U.S. lineup that don't offer some form of electric motivation are the GR 86 and Supra sports cars. Still, as long as its curb weight stayed down, we suspect an electrified GR 86 certainly wouldn't disappoint.
You Might Also Like
