If you believe solely in the power of the stock market, then the world’s most important automaker is Tesla, whose soaring stock valuation reflects faith in Elon Musk and his AI dreams as much as it does the company’s EV sales. But if you care about selling cars, the real most important company is Toyota. The world’s largest automaker delivers more than 10 million vehicles per year, twice the sales of even a giant like General Motors.
The Japanese leader has a complicated relationship with sustainability. Toyota became the world’s signature crunchy car-maker with the introduction and success of the hybrid Prius. It still sells the Mirai, one of the only hydrogen fuel cell cars on the market. But Toyota has also always been reticent about EVs, standing on the sidelines while other legacy automakers rushed in with electric offerings, with its leadership expressing consistent skepticism about the advent of the EV era.
That is seemingly about to change, as the automaker appears ready to stop dragging its feel on full battery power. Toyota teased a few nuggets of important EV news over the past few weeks, And although its nine planned EVs by the end of 2026 are meant for Europe, this is a crucial window into the big brand’s plans.
First: Its initial foray into the pure EV space, the bZ4x, is getting an overdue upgrade. The awkwardly named crossover has been one of the more disappointing electric vehicles on the market, with just 214 horsepower. Its range, which starts around 220 miles and only goes as high as 250, isn’t up to the standards of today’s best EVs. The new version, however, pumps up the output to 343 horses, while also extending maximum range for the American version to around 280 miles. It finally adds simple, obvious features such as integrating charging stops into the in-car navigation system, making Toyota’s EV far more competitive with the state of the art.
The company has also promised, at long last, a deeper lineup of fully electric vehicles set to debut this year and in 2026. First is the C-HR+, a fully electrified version of the quirky little Toyota crossover that was briefly on sale in the United States until it was discontinued in 2022. (I test-drove one once and it was fun, if awkwardly proportioned.) C-HR+ would be the entry-level Toyota EV, with specs similar to the bZ4x but in a smaller and slightly less expensive package.
Then there’s the Urban Cruiser, which fits between the C-HR+ and bZ4x in terms of size. This EV is the spiritual successor to the Scion xD that was sold in America back before Toyota discontinued the Scion sub-brand here. The Urban Cruiser is set to go on sale only in Europe, at least for now. Specs like its driving range are not yet known.
The rest of Toyota’s EV plans lie in the shadows. In addition to the three models it revealed fully, the company also presented a slide that teased six more, depicted only by a faint outline. That’s standard practice in the car world, meant to drum up intrigue about cars yet to come. Tesla, for example, fed years of rumors about a small, entry-level EV that (to date, at least) never showed up by showing it under a sheet in various media presentations.
What’s noticeable about Toyota’s tease? There’s a truck.
Toyota has toyed with making an electric pickup before. In 2023, its engineers built a prototype EV version of the small Hilux truck Toyota sells in huge numbers around the world. That one-off became a real production EV, though only in Thailand and packs just 124 miles of range.
The design Toyota just teased looks like an extended-cab American pickup truck, not the single-row small truck is sells elsewhere. This leads to obvious speculation that Toyota might finally be electrifying the Tacoma and aiming to compete with the likes of Ford, Chevy, Rivian, and Ram, a move that would be a jolt to the sluggish market for EV trucks.
Although Toyota is late to the game — and its participation earlier would have done a lot to juice EV adoption — these moves are crucial. For one thing, the timing is interesting. The giant company’s much-awaited dive into EVs just as the United States government is putting the squeeze on them is further proof that the global market for electric vehicles isn’t going anywhere. We already know that enthusiasm for EVs is hotter in other countries, and Toyota sells cars everywhere.
And who knows? With Elon Musk flailing in the political winds, throwing away Tesla’s huge lead in various EV markets for no particular reason, maybe Toyota finally saw its moment to strike.
New Jersey Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill. Kena Betancur/Getty Images
