Toyota and BYD working on affordable EV sedan, to debut in 2022
- News
- New cars
- December 3, 2021
- Arif Chan
Although a bit late to the EV party, it seems Toyota is going full throttle with adding more EVs to its model line-up.
Reuters reports that the Japanese giant automaker is working with BYD Auto to produce an affordable EV sedan specific for the Chinese market only.
Interestingly in this scenario, it is the technology from BYD that will be used in the development of this Ev sedan, specifically its LFP (Lithium-iron-phosphate) Blade battery technology.
Sources close to the matter say that the Toyota-BYD EV sedan will be positioned below premium EVs like the Tesla Model Y and the NIO ES6, but above ultra-cheap EVs like the Hong Guang Mini EV.
Its is speculated that the Toyota-BYD EV sedan will be priced around 200,000 Yuan (~RM 132,585).
Toyota has briefly explored a battery venture with BYD in 2018 where Toyota’s engineers came across BYD’s LFP battery technology and described it as a game-changing innovation.
Reuter reports,”LFP batteries have a lower energy density than most other lithium-ion cells but are cheaper, have a longer shelf-life, are less prone to overheating and don’t use cobalt or nickel. Tesla already uses LFP batteries in its Model 3 and Model Y in China.”
In July 2019, Toyota and BYD enter into agreement to jointly develop battery electric vehicles, and later in November 2019 announced a joint R&D company.
The Toyota-BYD EV sedan will debut as a concept car at the Beijing Autoshow in April 2022 and will most likely be the second “bZ” car from Toyota after the bZ4x.
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