Toyota, a pioneer in hybrid systems since the late 20th century, hasn’t remained on the electric car industry’s cusp. But, that will soon change.
Japanese newspaper The Mainichi reported Saturday that Toyota has set up a dedicated electric-car research and development division called the ‘Toyota ZEV Factory’. The R&D division is meant to speed up the introduction of zero-emission cars from the Japanese automaker. To start, Toyota will task 200 engineers to begin development, parts procurement and preparation for the mass production of future electric cars and fuel-cell vehicles, according to the report.
Shigeki Terashi, Toyota executive vice president in charge of the company’s advanced research and development, will lead the new division.
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The newest division is also a major expansion of Toyota’s previous EV business planning team, which formed in 2016. The automaker is working to begin volume production of electric cars in 2020, and it’s rumored one Toyota EV could feature a solid-state battery as soon as 2022. Solid-state batteries are much denser than lithium-ion units, thus, they can pack more range. However, they remain incredibly expensive to produce today.
Toyota also announced it would develop electric cars alongside a new partner in 2017: Mazda. The two Japanese automakers will share capital structure for electric vehicle development. The two companies also announced a new factory in the United States set to open in 2021.
[Source: Mainichi]
A version of this story originally appeared on Hybrid Cars.
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