Toyota’s President Akio Toyoda took on the insanity of politicians who want to fully convert to electric cars. He said Japan would run out of electricity in the summer if all cars were run on electric power. The infrastructure needed to support a fleet consisting entirely of electric vehicles (EVs) would cost Japan between ¥14-¥37 trillion, the equivalent of $135-$358 billion, he said.
“When politicians are out there saying, ‘Let’s get rid of all cars using gasoline,’ do they understand this?” Toyoda said Dec. 17 at a year-end news conference, in his capacity as chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association. In a country such as Japan that gets most of its electricity from burning coal and natural gas, “The more EVs we build, the worse the carbon dioxide gets,” Toyoda said.
Toyoda said he feared government regulations would make cars a “flower on a high summit”—out of reach for the average person.
