Toyota is 'behind the game' when it comes to pure EVs, analyst says
Well, Toyota can consider 2024 to be its year of vindication and what I mean by that is that. Overall, globally we’ve seen a shift away from pure electric vehicles back to hybrids, and plug in hybrids is exactly where Toyota’s sweet spot is. So after coming under ferocious attacks when Tesla was flying high in 2021-2022, 2023-2024 consumers are moving heavily in favor of Toyota products. And I know the stock is down today, but it’s up like 60% in the last year. So think of Toyota is hitting on all cylinders right now. Then we look at Nissan and they’ve had this separation going on with Renault for a while. They’re trying to find their own independent way. If I were looking at the Japanese auto industry, I think Toyota is solid today and solid into the future. Nissan is fragile, vulnerable and needs to find its differentiation to be competitive going forward. Then how do you rationalize the profit taking that we’re seeing in Toyota despite good numbers and good projections? And that sweet spot in hybrid vehicles? That’s right. Well, they’ve had a tremendous run up up until now. Couple things are are new, new challenges for Toyota. So on the one hand, customers today are going back to their hybrids and the pocket have good news for Toyota. At the same time, Toyota must confront 2 new challenges. One is that when it comes to pure electric vehicles, Toyota is behind the game. It knows it’s behind the game, it’s racing and catch up. So it’s spending billions of dollars to try to match the competition coming out of where. China. And that’s the second big challenge on the horizon. Companies like BYD are going global in a hurry and attacking Toyota’s strongholds and many markets around the world, including, for example, Thailand and Australia. So that may be the reason why investors are saying, hey, there’s been a good run for Toyota the last year, Maybe we’re peaking a little bit right now.