Toyota accused of spreading EV disinformation to profit from fossil-fuelled hybrids

Greenpeace has slammed Australia’s most trusted car maker, Toyota, for being a “global roadblock” and “spreading disinformation” about electric vehicles, as research shows hybrid EVs fall short of the climate benefits that major automotive giants spruik in the EV-scarce Australian market.

Greenpeace Electrify Campaign director Lindsay Soutar tells SmartCompany that Toyota is “lobbying to weaken vehicle emissions standards, greenwashing its image and promoting electric vehicle disinformation while making big profits from polluting internal combustion engine and fossil-fuelled hybrid cars”.

It’s the conclusion of a far-reaching Greenpeace investigation called ‘The Toyota Files’ that found the carmaker is pressuring governments to “support fossil fuel-powered hybrid cars” and placing “profit ahead of the health and safety of Australians and the environment”.

“Toyota has proven themselves a global roadblock to electric vehicles,” Soutar said.

“While other companies are making rapid shifts to scale up electric vehicle production, Toyota has remained in the slow lane, instead lobbying to delay transition rather than embrace it.”

Senate standoff over EV definition

It comes as Senate powerbrokers the Greens and key crossbenchers, including independent David Pocock, are in a stalemate with the government about whether plug-in hybrid EVs should qualify for the generous tax incentives in Labor’s EV policy.

The policy excludes EVs from the fringe benefits tax — which would make them cheaper for employers when included in a salary package for an employee — and exclude EVs from import tariffs, which would slash the retail price for consumers.

But whether the petrol-powered hybrid EVs should be included has divided MPs.

“Public money should be driving the electric vehicle revolution, not giving handouts for petrol cars,” Greens leader Adam Bandt said.

Plus, Pocock points out, half the kilometres travelled by plug-in hybrids use the petrol engine rather than the battery.

“My concern is that this legislation as drafted will slow the transition to EVs. The second-hand EV market is the one we need to foster — not second-hand hybrids.”

Hybrids not so green, Greenpeace warns

Hybrid electric vehicles, including plug-in hybrids, have a petrol-fuelled internal combustion engine (ICE) as well as a battery-powered motor. As a driver accelerates, electricity is generated for the battery motor, while a plug-in hybrid gets its electricity when it’s charged up, much like your regular smartphone.

Generally, hybrids are billed as running on electricity between 50km/hr and 80km/hr and revert to petrol otherwise.

But a hybrid EV is much closer to a gas-guzzling petrol car than an actual EV, according to research from the European Federation for Transport and Environment (E&T), an influential NGO that has shaped some of the continent’s most significant environmental laws to date.

The E&T’s “How clean are electric cars?” tool and report show regular hybrids only reduce automotive emissions by a fifth (21%), while plug-in hybrids only slash them by a quarter (26%). Electric vehicles, on the other hand, slash emissions by more than two-thirds (69%).

“Hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles have been heavily promoted as a climate solution but despite their green credentials, life cycle and real-world usage, analysis reveals significant limitations of this technology,” Soutar said.

“Experience from Europe suggests that consumers may not be getting the financial and emissions savings they may anticipate.”

But it seems Toyota is digging its heels in. Two weeks ago, Reuters reported that Toyota was rethinking its $38 billion EV rollout plan to compete with Tesla, and had stopped work on some of the 30 EV projects announced in December — including the Toyota Compact Cruiser crossover and the battery-electric Crown.

Why? Domestically, at least, it’s a better bottom line. In 2021, Toyota was the biggest seller of hybrids in Australia — mostly RAV4s — with a record 65,491 driving out of the showroom, accounting for nearly a third (29.3%) of the Japanese automotive titan’s total sales.

“Internal combustion and hybrid engines are complicated pieces of machinery, requiring lots of parts and ongoing maintenance, all of which Toyota can generate returns on,” Greenpeace’s report found.

But Toyota says it’s all in the name of climate action. When approached for comment, a Toyota spokesperson pointed SmartCompany to a press release where CEO Matthew Callachor said: “Right now, due to their popularity and record sales in Australia, Toyota [hybrid EVs] provide a significant benefit in reducing the amount of carbon entering the atmosphere.”

“They are reducing more emissions, sooner, than [EVs] alone.”

The research suggests the opposite. A study from The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) looked at 9000 vehicles across the European Union, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom and found 89% of the hybrid car’s power was from petrol.

So how did Callachor reason it out? In the late ’90s, Toyota was a pioneer of hybrid technology, and in 2001, the game-changing hybrid Prius exploded onto the market, marking the beginning of an era of cleaner cars. Toyota has sold a quarter of a million hybrids since then.

“According to our calculations, those 240,000 hybrids have had the same impact on reducing CO2 as approximately 72,000 [EVs],” Callachor said.

“Yet the volume of batteries we’ve used to produce these hybrid-electric vehicles is the same as we’d need for just 3500 [EVs],” he said.

“It means that [hybrid EVs] are an extremely effective way of reducing carbon emissions today, and doing so at a comparatively affordable price.”

But Soutar says the tide has turned. Sales of EVs have overtaken hybrids for the first time in Australia, with 7247 EVs sold in October compared to 5141 hybrids.

And it would’ve happened years ago if Australia hadn’t fallen behind as one of the only countries in the OECD without fuel emission standards, which has greatly reduced the selection of EV models in the domestic market.

“For companies like Toyota to fall back on hybrids to claim it’s doing its bit to tackle climate change is just not good enough anymore,” Soutar said.

Australia “at the back of the global queue”

A fuel efficiency standard is a cap on the overall amount of emissions a car manufacturer could have across all its vehicles, which would ideally steer it towards creating more efficient models — like EVs.

A manufacturer’s overall limit would taper off over a period of years in order to drive down our emissions, and if a manufacturer exceeded its fuel efficiency standard limit, it would be fined.

In 2014, Australia’s Climate Change Authority backed fuel emission standards, but successive Coalition governments stalled while 80% of the car manufacturing market moved forward with standards.

As a result, a little more than 3% of new vehicle sales in Australia are electric, compared to 16.9% in the UK and 83.7% in Norway.

“With no fuel efficiency standards in place, Australia is at the back of the global queue for electric vehicle supply, and instead we’re stuck being sent the world’s most polluting vehicles that other countries will no longer accept,” Soutar said.

“Unlocking Australia’s supply of affordable electric cars through strong fuel efficiency standards will save motorists money, clean up our air and cut our reliance on dirty, imported fuel.

Earlier this year, Climate Minister Chris Bowen said the government would consider adopting tougher fuel efficiency standards to boost EV sales, but it is yet to implement any policy.

“It’s a no-brainer,” Soutar said.

“It’s time for the Albanese government to get on with it.”