Toyota has pledged to launch nine new full electric cars by the end of next year, including a pick-up and a production version of the Land Cruiser Se concept.
Three SUVs – the new Urban Cruiser and C-HR+, plus the revised bZ4X – make up three of the six models that will wear Toyota badges. And at its annual media forum event in early March, it showed shadowy silhouettes of three more cars – a pair of larger SUVs and a pick-up truck – due before the end of 2026.
”With the following three we will establish a big focus on activities and lifestyle,” said Toyota’s head of design Simon Humphries.
The Land Cruiser name is likely to make it through to production on the larger electric SUV as part of Toyota’s switch away from the bZ naming strategy for EVs to lean more on its existing brands, as is the case with the resurrected Urban Cruiser and new C-HR+.
“Creating a brand new name plate from scratch is a fairly expensive exercise from a marketing and branding point of view,” Toyota’s UK boss Scott Thompson told Auto Express. “We’ve got to try and utilise as much of our history as we can.”
That could lead to the Highlander nameplate, more popular in other areas of the world, returning to the UK after a brief foray with a big hybrid seven-seat SUV ended last year.
Sister brand Lexus will add two as-yet unspecified cars to its revised RZ, one to be revealed next month and the other late this year, although Pascal Ruch, vice president of Lexus Europe, hinted that Toyota’s premium arm would initially be looking at larger segments for its electric models.
“While Toyota will be more focused on the mainstream segments, Lexus will focus more on bigger segments, although by the end of the decade you could see smaller Lexus BEVs too,” said Ruch. He confirmed that by 2030, there will be an electric option in every segment Lexus currently has a car.
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