A green direction no car maker dares to pursue: Toyota to focus less on cars, more on moving people - future mobility with an Asian flavour

Show me a company that claims buying an electric vehicle (EV) is the only way to combat climate change, and I'll show you an example of greenwashing.

Yes, EVs don’t pollute, and yes, EVs are cleaner even when it's charged from a coal-heavy power grid, and yes it is right for governments to encourage their adoption. What is wrong, however, is when lobbyists present EVs as the only acceptable solution, demanding that incentives be made exclusive to one technology, when a technology-neutral package will probably serve the people better.

The truth is, merely replacing internal combustion engine (ICE) cars with EVs is an oversimplification of the climate challenge we face.

The Coke Zero analogy

You can replace every car on the road with an EV and still do little to make our cities greener.

For example, the more serious problem of loss of green spaces to build more roads and parking spaces, which in turn creates more urban heat islands that warm up our cities further, exacerbating unsustainable urban sprawl, plus the lack of walkable cities, often gets shoved under the rug.

Pushing EVs as a solution for climate change resembles promoting Coke Zero as a remedy for obesity; a catchy marketing spin yet an oversimplification of a complex issue.

Yes Coke Zero is healthier than regular Coke, just like EVs are cleaner than regular combustion engine cars, but you must be incredibly naive to believe that Coke Zero is a health drink, or EVs save the planet. However this is exactly what the Global North is doing under their EV-pushing COP25 agenda.

Optimize public transport, let keen drivers enjoy their cars

Just like becoming healthy, if you are serious about going green, you must focus on changing your lifestyle (use more public transport, for example).

For car manufacturers, they need to think more about moving people, not selling more electric cars. This is an inconvenient truth no car manufacturing company wants to admit, except for Toyota.

It may sound odd, but Toyota is actually fine with selling fewer cars in the next decade if it means their new products and services can move more people than their current cars can.

Toyota is proposing that we look at the bigger picture, beyond cars and to focus on mobility. It wants governments, especially those in Southeast Asia, to ask themselves how future mobility should look like for their country.

It's not about ICE vs BEVs, it's about moving people, physically and emotionally

The key word here is mobility – the freedom of movement, it's not about hybrids or electric cars or hydrogen cars. Those are just some of the many means to attain mobility, and Toyota says we should not limit ourselves to just car-based options.

Each country needs to determine whether mobility is best achieved through hybrid cars, e-scooters, single-seater electric pods, or on-demand AI-driven driverless electric transit vans that connect homes to train stations.

Toyota's holistic approach is what sets them apart. It is open to including public transport in their plans, even if it means selling fewer cars, thus making their green intentions seem more genuine.

However, not everyone sees it this way. Many EV proponents can’t see past Toyota’s insistence on affordable, practical hybrids as the fastest way to reduce CO2 emissions on the widest possible scale, accusing them of being anti-EV.

But what Toyota is really saying is that we need to accept the diversity of needs in each country and offer the best fit-for-purpose local solutions, not forcing something from Europe or even China into a totally different environment.

Asia is a very complex region, no one xEV solution for all

Speaking on the topic of Future Mobility for the Asian region, ahead of next week’s Japan Mobility Show, Pras Ganesh, Toyota's Executive Vice-President responsible for Asia Pacific, emphasized that trying to force countries with very different socio-economic standings and local needs, to accept a one-size-fits-all solution, a generic EV, for example, is not the right approach.

Even within Asia, Pras highlighted there already exists huge differences in infrastructure readiness and income levels between India and Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and Thailand.

Pras emphasized that Toyota doesn’t believe in pitting ICE or EVs against hybrids or hydrogen fuel cells; it’s not an either-or scenario. Embracing diversity of needs and offering best fit-for-purpose is key, or as Toyota calls it – the Multi-pathway Solution.

In a market like Singapore, clearly a battery EV like a bZ4X works best. In Sandakan, maybe a Corolla Cross Hybrid may be more suitable, or in Chiang Mai, a bio-fuel Hilux.

With or without cars, Toyota's Asian-style, customer-first, inclusive mindset remains

Toyota’s goal for future mobility is split into two main pillars – embracing diversity and ensuring equal access to mobility.

Diversity refers to recognizing the difference in culture, languages, government administration, population, resources, economic development, and understanding how all these factors influence the mobility needs of a particular country.

Happiness stems from living life to the fullest, and a foundational aspect of this is the freedom of mobility, regardless of whether one can afford a car or not.

Chairman Akio Toyoda once said that 'producing ‘Happiness for All,’ rather than producing cars, is the real goal for Toyota. Cars are just one way of producing happiness for customers. The goal is always, delivering happiness through freedom of mobility.

The second pillar, equal access to mobility, dubbed by Toyota as ‘Mobility for All’ means that regardless of income group, young or old, healthy or wheelchair-bound people, everyone must be able to move freely.

Not just digital divide, Malaysia is divided by access to mobility

‘Mobility for All’ is a subject that is more important to Malaysia than many of us realize. By the United Nations standard, Malaysia is already an ageing society.

Our national old-age dependency ratio – the measure of individuals 65 years old and above per 100 working-age population, has witnessed a steady increase to 11% in 2021. The state of Perak is the highest, at 13.2%.

Old people have limited mobility and many of them require regular treatment / checkups at hospitals, which tend to be located in town centres, far away from their homes.

Hailing a taxi / Grab is not possible because these care-dependent senior citizens still require assistance to move around. Unreliable public transport and lack of wheelchair-friendly transport compounds the problem.

Did you know that unequal access to mobility also keeps poor Malaysians poor? Without equal access to mobility, poorer people are unable to travel further to earn a better living, or seek better healthcare.

Lower income groups relying on motorcycles face greater risk and exposure to rain when travelling to work and back, while the need to build sufficient car parks keep housing prices high, which then forces people to live further away from their places of work, thus spending more time stuck in traffic, which in turn affects their health and productivity at work - it’s a negative cycle that keeps feeding itself.

Of course, Toyota still wants us to buy cars, but Toyota also wants the roads to be open enough for us to enjoy our GR 86, and for families to go on trips in their Innova Zenix Hybrid. This can’t be done if roads are permanently congested.

For us to enjoy our cars, good public transport and walkable cities are necessary.

Traffic congestion and lack of means to connect homes to public transport hubs is something that the Toyota Mobility Foundation (TMF), which Pras is the Program Director, needs to solve to achieve Mobility for All.

Mobility for All is not just another woke project done so Toyota can tick one more box in its ESG audit. TMF is already trialling various solutions across cities in developing Asia.

In India, TMF completed a 3-year project in several highly congested Indian cities to develop last-mile / first-mile solutions to connect users to public transport hubs, using uniquely Indian solutions – shared Auto, as Tuk Tuks are known as there.

In the highly congested Ubud town of Bali, Toyota is trialling integrated system that involves pairing on-demand available electric / hybrid shuttle services, even cute single-seater electric commuter pods, with dynamic bus schedule displays across Ubud. A fleet of hybrid, electric, and fuel cell Toyota models are also open for sharing.

In Vietnam, TMF is working on building an urban transit corridor in Da Nang. It involves rolling out efficient buses, safe park-and-ride facilities, on-street parking management.

In Bangkok, Toyota trialled shared single-seater electric pods that connect universities and government offices to MRT and SkyTrain stations.

In Manila, there’s an app-based dynamic routing shuttle van service called myToyota Shuttle PH. It's developed to encourage office workers or students to carpool to the nearest train station.

In Japan, Toyota did trials with the two-seater i-Road, targetting users who have to a make frequent short distance trips with two people, parents doing school runs for example. The electric i-Road is just as agile and as compact as a motorcycle, but with a covered roof and three wheels, it's a lot safer.

The idea is to use the i-Road as a shared commuter pod, integrating them into the city's train and bus hubs.

More Asia-specific directions will be shared in the build-up to the opening of the Japan Mobility Show on 25-October.

Unfortunately for traditional car guys, motor shows too are evolving, which is why the Tokyo Motor Show has been renamed as such. There will still be cars, but the cars will be placed amongst passenger-carrying drones, assistant robots, electric wheelchairs, pods, scooters, whatever that moves people in green cities.

The role once held by the Tokyo Motor Show, which many admired growing up, is increasingly being taken over by the Tokyo Auto Salon.