Toyota v Tesla: War of EV words heats up

Toyota president Akio Toyoda has taken a rare swipe at electric car giant Tesla during an earnings briefing last week.

The grandson of Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda addressed the stock market valuation of the Japanese giant, something that appears to be a sore point with one of the world’s largest car makers.

According to the stock market Tesla is more valuable than Toyota, having overtaken the company earlier this years. That’s despite Tesla selling only a fraction of the cars of Toyota and being vastly less profitable; in 2019 Tesla sold 367,500 cars and posted an annual loss whereas Toyota (including its Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino brands) sold 10.7 million and made a healthy profit.

“We are losing when it comes to the share price, but when it comes to products, we have a full menu that will be chosen by customers,” said Toyoda in a restaurant analogy he built on.

“Tesla says that their recipe will be the standard in the future, but what Toyota has is a real kitchen and a real chef.

“They aren’t really making something that’s real, people are just buying the recipe. We have the kitchen and chef, and we make real food.”

Despite suggesting that runs on the board count for plenty in the car industry, Toyoda did concede Toyota may be able to learn from Tesla, including with over-the-air software updates and profitability on electric cars.

In Australia, Toyota does not currently offer any rechargeable electric cars, instead focusing heavily on simpler and cheaper regular hybrids.

And the typically conservative company has sometimes been slow to market with new technology, instead focusing on what it knows best – selling lots of cars, many of them diesel-powered (Toyota sells more diesels than any other brand).

Luxury brand Lexus will next year begin selling the UX300e electric car in Australia, starting the EV journey for Toyota.

Toyota has reportedly said it wants to produce 500,000 battery electric vehicles by 2025.

Tesla boss Elon Musk has previously said the company should be selling a few million EVs by 2025.

However, Tesla sales predictions routinely fall flat, something that has shocked sharemarket investors in the past.