The head of Toyota SA Motors says building the Corolla Cross Hybrid locally was a “big gamble” that turned out to be a “breakthrough” in Mzansi’s new-energy vehicle space…
Andrew Kirby, President and CEO of Toyota South Africa Motors, says the decision to produce the Corolla Cross Hybrid locally was a “quite big gamble” that resulted in a “breakthrough” for the Japanese brand in the new-energy vehicle space.
Kirby made the comments about the Corolla Cross Hybrid – which uses a naturally aspirated 1.8-litre, 4-cylinder petrol engine and hybrid gubbins for a total power output of 90 kW – to Cars.co.za during a short podcast interview at Naamsa’s South African Auto Week 2024 in Cape Town.
“We’ve been working on driving new-energy vehicles in South Africa for many years. We were quite innovative with the Prius – it didn’t have broadscale appeal – but our big breakthrough really came when we launched the Corolla Cross Hybrid.
“We took quite a big gamble. It launched in November 2021 and we – quite frankly – under-forecast the demand for hybrid. We’re now running at 50% [of all Corolla Cross sales being hybrid derivatives]. In the beginning, it was a bit restricted because we couldn’t supply actually,” he told us.
“So, the South African public has responded very, very quickly and the word of mouth has been very strong. Customers [who] drive the hybrid only want to drive another hybrid. That tells a big story.”
The Japanese automaker produces the Corolla Cross at its Prospecton plant in KwaZulu-Natal, with the 7-strong local range currently including a trio of hybrid derivatives. The firm’s local division also imports various other new-energy vehicles, a portfolio Kirby says will grow even further in the coming months.
“We’ve now increased the range of our vehicles significantly and we’ll continue to do that. Our Lexus brand, for example – 45% of all Lexus vehicles at the moment are hybrids. So, it’s got the highest penetration of new-energy vehicle drivetrains.
“But we haven’t stopped there. We’re now launching plug-in hybrids and we will next year [2025] be launching battery-electric vehicles. We have one on display here [at SA Auto Week 2024] – the Lexus RZ – and we are going to introduce a Toyota battery-electric vehicle next year and, in the years to come, even more,” Kirby said.
He went on to explain that Toyota’s “multi-pathway” approach to eventually reaching carbon neutrality involved a broad range of powertrain solutions, a strategy that would be applied to the South African market as well.
“Our philosophy is that we’re not pinning our sales into one technology. We think that the different technologies are going to have different value propositions for different cars, different customers, different ways of usage.
“We’re following what we refer to as a multi-pathway approach, which means that we’ll still have internal-combustion engines – they’ll just become more and more efficient over time. Maybe even we’ll have carbon-neutral fuel, but we’ll broaden our offering of hybrids, we’ll bring in more and more plug-in hybrids and we’ll be introducing battery electrics – and, as we’re also displaying here [at SA Auto Week 2024], fuel-cell electric vehicles.
“I think the differing technologies with innovation are going to be more suited to different types of vehicles and how they’re used. And we’ll end up with a wide range of different new-energy vehicle drivetrains,” Kirby predicted.
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