The tipping point, insiders say, was when data from the first quarter of this year showed Tesla’s Model Y had usurped Toyota’s Corolla to become the world’s bestselling car. That’s when what Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe had earlier called “Tesla shock” truly hit home in Nagoya—when Toyota, the company whose lean production manufacturing techniques changed the way automobiles are built, realized it faced a threat as existential as the Toyota Production System had been to Detroit’s Big Three in the 1980s.
The Tesla threat is twofold. First and most obvious is the fact Toyota is late to the EV party. Thanks to its pioneering work with hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains, the company has a lot of experience with electric motors and batteries, but for years execs maintained that pure EVs are not the silver bullet that will secure the future of global automobility. There is some logic to their argument, but as Model Y sales numbers show, they can no longer deny the reality that EVs are a major vehicle segment.
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