CBI member, Toyota has announced that it plans to extend its partnerships with leading Chinese automobile manufacturers, such as BYD, and ride-hailing group, DiDi, to significantly improve its market share in the China market.
Toyota currently only has a 5% share of the China market, and remains far behind other foreign – predominantly German – car makers such as BMW, Audi and Mercedes. Consequently, 5 months ago, Toyota CEO, Akio Toyoda, journeyed west to capture the attention of China’s automobile market.
Since coming in April, Toyota has signed deals with BYD and Contemporary Amperex Technology to develop batteries for electrified vehicles and invested $600 million in DiDi. Building on these initial investments, Toyota teamed up with Chinese start-up unicorn, Pony.ai to carry out a pilot programme for autonomous driving in July, which resulted in the Japanese marque joining Baidu’s self-driving car programme, Apollo.
As Chinese consumers become further entrenched in a trade war with the US, the Japanese group has benefited in a turn in fortunes. While reduced consumer spending saw China’s automobile market fall by 11.4% over the last 12 months, Toyota saw sales rise by 12%.
Mr. Toyoda said: “The potential rewards for Toyota are immense. Especially in this market, China, the speed of change is very, very fast. [Toyota] have to make a lot of effort to follow the changes in China. That’s the biggest issue for us.”
Company executives reportedly see China as one of the few markets where Toyota has the potential to sell its broad line-up of electrification technology used in hybrids, electric cars, and fuel cell vehicles. Beijing wants to become the world’s champion in fully electric vehicles by 2025, after all.
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