Featured Radically redesigned sporty Corolla EV arriving in two years

Their PR department said a few weeks ago it would be by 2027 and now just a small number of weeks later they're saying late 2027? The entire premise of their new EVs is Solid State batteries are fully developed and ready to roll off the assembly line in a little over a year! This is a flat out lie and Toyota in the 2020's is more focused on their PR spewing out endless BS than actually developing vehicles that are are ready for market in a little over a year:

-- Experts say if SSBs succeed, it will likely be “sometime in the 2030s.” https://www.energymonitor.ai/tech/energy-storage/are-solid-state-batteries-finally-ready-to-live-up-to-the-hype

-- Panasonic's Chief Technology Officer, Tatsua Ogawa, said on August 4th in the Financial Times that Solid-State Batteries are going to remain a niche market for drones and power tools for many more years. Subscribe to read

-- ANEGASAKI, Japan, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Japan's No.2 oil refiner, Idemitsu Kosan <5019.T> plans to build a large-scale plant for lithium sulphide, a key material for all-solid-state batteries, at its Chiba refinery, near Tokyo, the company said on Thursday. ...Idemitsu plans to complete the new plant by June 2027, with an estimated cost of 21.3 billion yen ($143 million). https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/japans-idemitsu-build-lithium-sulphide-plant-help-support-toyotas-ev-plans-2025-02-27/

-- Recent coverage compiling expert reactions notes Toyota’s 2027 target could mean a small number of demo/limited-volume vehicles rather than high-volume models. Tech press coverage cites experts who stress limited early output. Toyota says it will launch the world's first solid-state EVs in 2027, but is that realistic? Here's what experts say | TechRadar

 

The North American model year system can lead to confusion in announcements.

 

looks like a concept

 

Not even that; automotive press made renderings. It is all speculation at this point. I think the only new tech we can expect is the use of the new engine family. I sorta remember Toyota saying the next Corolla would be the first to use them earlier this year.

 

Yeah... And they'll finally have the prototype done in 2027.

 

Looks like a pre-concept of a concept car... Much like Trump's pretend ball room, the drawing of the outside of the vehicle doesn't match the inside. Just more hype and hyperbole that's not based on actual reality!

 

Even if it is a concept, I think its clear that there's an acceleration of Toyota EV offerings coming. A corolla EV, the BZ, CHR EV would be three options. Add in the PHEV Prius and RAV4, and I think we saw rumours of a Camry PHEV in the future too, and they're going to have a pretty deep lineup of Battery powered cars that go beyond the traditional hybrid systems that they're very well known for and have largely perfected over time.

While they might have been behind other automakers for a while, it looks like they're very quickly catching up. While Toyota is often not the absolute best driving experience out there and they don't have the best price:feature ratio overall, they still offer really good value for long term owners. Even in the shorter term reliability department, they still beat out Hyundai/Kia which have been a lot earlier to the EV market in the west. For all the shortcomings of the BZ4X/Solterra subaru partnership, the car doesn't have an Achilles heel like the Hyundai Ioniqs and Kia EVX series do. They have a control board on perpetual backorder that fails at a high enough rate I see it way too much on social media which bricks their cars.

But for all the bellyaching about the BZ4X, the only recall was related to the wheel bolts. Which was bad, but is significantly easier to address and far less critical, and only impacted one model year of the car. The ICCUs have had multiple software update related recalls, and none seem to work as well as at least one part revision with a new part number that still didn't solve things for many owners. And for as much as people clown on dealers and warranties, the hyundai/kia warranty support is very poor compared to toyota too.

And as for other makes/models, the north american companies are not pushing very hard on EVs, and are even scaling back since their primary market has lost subsidies and supports at the government level in America, the largest consumer market for them, so there's likely going to be little progress there in terms of broader EV access.

Maybe Toyota's partnership with BYD in China is really paying dividends, along with the fact that they've been sharing the burden of development on their EVs with Subaru for Japan/Europe/NA in their partnership is well.

Whether they're actually just blowing smoke on solid state or not is, to me, totally moot. But knowing that more options from Toyo are coming I'm pretty happy. In the abscence of allowing chinese EVs in Canada, Toyota and others adding to their lineups will only help to drive the price down further.

Tesla with Musk can go suck an egg, so I won't even bother to discuss them.

 

Looks like the renderings published by the Japanese magazine at the beginning of the year. The sunken hood profile helps aerodynamics, though limits ICE installation. The new engine family was designed for it. They were also designed to be paired with an electric motor; no straight ICE for this generation.

There might be a switch over to a BYD style hybrid system. At least for the PHEV. The hybrid might get a solid state battery. Toyota has said they were going to put it in a hybrid first. Doubt they'll have the production volume to support a plug in with meaningful sales numbers.

The bellyaching wasn't about the wheels; that was schadenfreude. The complaint was in Toyota releasing a BEV with lower range and charge rates than competitors without any price savings. Plus the lack of supply, which also plagued the Rav4 Prime. Hoping those issues have been addressed for the Corolla EV.