#Toyota’s first American battery EVs launch this year — taking it beyond hybrids

Japanese carmaker Toyota, known for its ever popular hybrid vehicles, is finally launching its first battery electric vehicles later this year in America.

Alongside the two BEVs, the company is also launching a new plug-in hybrid.

Sadly, that’s all the info we get from the latest announcement. Toyota seemed more keen in its announcement to bang on about the virtues of all-electric drivetrains and plug-in hybrids, than share more details of what we’ll get to drive next.

It’s a bit of a change of tune considering that the Japanese marque has rigidly stuck to hybrid tech, with a smattering of hydrogen on the side with its Mirai.

The main takeaway we have here, is that Toyota is finally bending over to what the world is asking for, and governments are demanding: battery powered cars.

If you want to read Toyota’s full announcement, click here to hear it from the horses mouth.

[Read: How Polestar is using blockchain to increase transparency]

Toyota teased its upcoming battery electric vehicles last December, showing off nothing more than a couple of sketches and schematics.

The route to the future is becoming ever clearer for Toyota too.

Not long after talking about its American EVs for the first time, it announced that its solid state battery tech was going into testing. If all goes well, we should be seeing it in production vehicles by 2025.

Solid state batteries are promising the next step in EV tech. They promise good range, require less cooling, should last longer, and can charge faster.

No matter how hard it tries, Toyota won’t avoid the battery electric future.

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Published February 11, 2021 — 08:55 UTC