Even The Mighty Toyota Bites The EV Slowdown Dust

In response to the EV slowdown, Toyota Motor Corporation TM is delaying its EV plans in the US. Toyota announced this week it has pushed back the start date of its US EV, with an unspecified time in 2026, after it planned to kick off production in late 2025 or early 2026. Like Ford Motor F, Toyota is scaling back its EV plans as already a month ago, Investing.com reported that Toyota is scaling back its EV production plans for 2026 by as much as 30%. 

However, Toyota remains committed to its goals. 

BBC reported that Toyota reaffirmed committed to its EV target of 1.5 million vehicles by 2026. 

Earlier this year, the Japanese automotive giant revealed it was investing $1.3 billion in its Kentucky factory where it plans to build a three-row, electric sport utility vehicle. Toyota also announced its plans to make another EV at its Indiana plant. To make these EV goals happen, Toyota has been heavily focused on its lithium-ion battery production with a factory in North Carolina that should come online next year. 

The EV landscape is challenging. 

Even the EV king, Tesla Inc TSLA missed Wall Street expectations last week with its quarterly figures. Moreover, Tesla is risk of reporting its first-ever decline in annual deliveries. Ford took a step back already during summer, scrapping plans for a large, three-row, all-electric SUV and postponing the launch of its next electric pickup truck. Even electrifying its best-selling Ford F-series wasn’t enough to bring victory to Ford. With its EV unit reporting a staggering loss of $2.5 billion during the first half of the year, Ford is on track to double that loss by the end of 2024. Like Ford, Volvo turned to hybrids. In September, Volvo gave up its target of selling only EVs by the end of the decade. Now, Volvo is aiming for at least 90% of its output to be made up of EVs and plug-in hybrids by the end of the decade. 

While automakers continue to withdraw in response to the EV slowdown, all eyes are on Tesla and whether its Robotaxi reveal will live up to the hype. The event named "We, Robot," is scheduled for Thursday at the massive Warner Brothers studio in Hollywood. Having been postponed as the original date was in August, with Tesla justifying the delay to make some important adjustments, expectations are high, to say the least, as the robotaxi represents a new chapter for Tesla whose EV dominance is fading away in light of intensified competition and a challenging macroeconomic backdrop. 

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