California's gas-powered vehicle ban will be 'difficult' to meet, Toyota's president says

The president of Toyota Motor Corporation said this week that adhering to California’s plan to ban gas emission vehicles will be "difficult" to achieve, and battery powered cars will take longer to phase in than the "mainstream media" believes.

"Realistically speaking, it seems rather difficult to really achieve them," Toyota Motor Corporation President Akio Toyoda told reporters through a translator on Thursday discussing California’s new mandates.

"But just like the fully autonomous cars that we were all supposed to be driving by now, BEVs are just going to take longer to become mainstream than the media would like us to believe," Toyoda told car dealers at the event.

Toyoda’s comments come after California’s Air Resources Board, at the direction of the state’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, adopted rules that would mandate all new cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs be electric or hydrogen powered by 2035.

In August, Toyota said it would boost its planned investment in a new U. S. battery plant from $1.29 billion to $3.8 billion, partly in response to rising consumer demand for electric vehicles. Toyota, the best-selling auto brand in California, last month recognized the state's authority to set vehicle emissions standards under the U.S. Clean Air Act.

"This is the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change," Newsom said in 2020 outlining the emissions plan. "For too many decades, we have allowed cars to pollute the air that our children and families breathe. Californians shouldn’t have to worry if our cars are giving our kids asthma. Our cars shouldn’t make wildfires worse – and create more days filled with smoky air. Cars shouldn’t melt glaciers or raise sea levels threatening our cherished beaches and coastlines."... (Read more)

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