Toyota accused of trying to keep Australia “stuck in petrol powered dark ages”

Toyota has been slammed for yet another attempt to stall Australia’s shift away from highly polluting vehicles after the government published submissions to its much-anticipated National Electric Vehicle Strategy on Friday.

The final design of the National Electric Vehicle Strategy will be critical not only to the trajectory of Australia’s transport emissions, but will also have a huge impact on the levels of pollution in Australian cities over the coming decade.

Key to this are the ambition of emission standards, the lack of which has been blamed for the crippling delay in deliveries of electric vehicles to Australia, and the lack of affordable EV options.

Toyota is attempting to water down vehicle emissions standards legislation, calling on the government to include loopholes such as “super credits” and “off-cycle credits” that can obscure manufacturers’ true emissions.

Global consumer group Ekō (formerly SumOfUs), says that Toyota’s submission shows it wants to keep Australia stuck in the petrol powered dark ages.

Despite surging demand for electric vehicles, Toyota didn’t sell a single EV in Australia in 2022. Globally EV’s made up less than 0.2% of Toyota’s total production.

With EV market share recently surging to 33% in countries like Germany and the UK, Toyota’s addressable markets are shrinking rapidly. EV market share in Australia is still a long way behind however it too is growing fast hitting 5.7% in January.

Rather than adapt to the changing markets, Toyota’s approach appears to be to try and delay the inevitable as long as it can so it can continue to sell its planet and health wrecking products.

Australia dragging the chain on vehicle emissions standards

Australia and Russia are the only OECD countries that still don’t have mandated fuel efficiency standards.

Many critics say that Australia should follow the New Zealand model which doesn’t include any super credits or off-cycle credit loopholes.

New Zealand’s model is clearly working as EV sales surged to 20% of all new cars sold in December.

Tesla, which argues against such credits, says Australia is a decade behind other countries in cutting emissions from transport, which are killing more Australians than vehicle accidents, and is a leading trigger of respiratory illness.

“Australian motorists now spend over $5000 on petrol each year on average, up to 30 per cent more than they would have if vehicle CO2 standards had been enacted in previous parliaments,” it says, noting the cost of dirty fuel and inefficient engines that are allowed to operate in the lack of standards.

Biggest polluter supports tougher standards

Even Australia’s biggest polluter, AGL Energy, which operates the biggest fleet of coal fired power stations in the country, supports the introduction of standards.

“A lack of Australian fuel efficiency standards has considerably slowed growth in our domestic EV market,” it says in its submission.

“Only a small proportion of EV models available globally are being supplied to Australia since we do not have a mandatory fuel efficiency standard.

“AGL supports the introduction of fuel efficiency standards to encourage a growth in supply of EV models to Australians. This will help to ensure that Australia can become a priority market for EVs to be supplied.”

A recent report by Greenpeace ranked Toyota the 3rd most influential negative climate lobbyist globally, after Exxon Mobil and Chevron, because of its sustained efforts to block clean air regulation and pressure governments to support fossil fuel powered hybrid cars.

Toyota’s campaign against policies

In its assessment of Toyota, independent think tank Influence Map says:

“Toyota has mostly negative engagement globally on policy mandating the full electrification of the automotive sector, instead promoting an extended role for ICE-powered vehicles, including hybrids.

“Toyota has also opposed numerous policies mandating the long-term phase-out of internal combustion engine (ICE)-powered vehicles and the introduction of zero-emission vehicle targets in multiple regions in 2021-22.”

In a statement, Ekō campaigner Nish Humphreys said “Australians don’t want to sacrifice our air quality and the safety of our climate so that Toyota can retain a market to keep dumping its outdated technology”

“We need ambitious, mandatory fuel efficiency standards to stop big carmarkers like Toyota from fuelling the climate crisis.” Humphreys said.

If Toyota wants to survive the electric vehicle revolution it should spend less time sabotaging good policies and more time developing EV volume production.