 "Centre's target of all-electric vehicles possible only in 2050: Toyota")
Toyota Kirloskar Motor on Thursday said the Centre's earlier target of setting up an all-electric fleet from 2030 will be possible from only 2050 and suggested that hybrid cars will be an "interim" solution till that time.
Vice-chairman and whole-time director at TKM, Shekar Viswanathan said the Japanese car maker is in the process of shipping around 4,000 newly launched Toyota Yaris sedan across the country for consumers even as he maintained that as of now they have about 60,000 customer enquiries on the car.
"The central government itself has backtracked on the 100 per cent e-vehicles by 2030 target. They realised that you can't have electric charging infrastructure in place by 2030 to achieve that target).
"I think this is going to become a reality only by 2050. Second we (TKM) are well positioned to introduce all types of technology products whether electric, hybrid hydrogen and any other technology that may come up in the next five years," the official said in a press conference.
The car maker on Thursday officially launched Toyota Yaris in Telangana.
He said they are suggesting the Government to encourage hybrid cars so that it need not create any additional infrastructure for charging of vehicles.
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"Our message for the Government of India is we don't have charging infrastructure today. It will take 20 to 30 years to build that charging infrastructure."
"In the interim period we believe that the ideal solution is hybrid vehicles. This is what we told the Government. And the Government will not have to spend a single penny in creating charging infrastructure for hybrid vehicle," he explained.
Replying to a query he said their two plants put together have a capacity of producing 3,10,000 vehicles per annum and the capacity utilisation is to the extent of 100 per cent for the plant one and about 30 per cent for the second unit.
Viswanathan said the target for the current calendar year is 1,60,000 units and this may change once the order book for newly launched Yaris is clearly emerged.
"For the calendar year, it will be 1,60,000 vehicles we are targeting. We will probably revise this number once the Yaris booking gets clear picture after a month or so. We have 60,000 enquiries and counting. Lot of these will be converted in to orders," he said.