Prius i
John Mahoney14 Nov 2017
NEWS

Toyota: Internal combustion engine dead by 2050

Japanese car-maker's R&D boss says come 2040 only 10 per cent of cars could have an internal combustion

Toyota's head of advanced R&D and engineering, Seigo Kuzumaki, expects the internal combustion engine to be dead by 2050 and only power 10 per cent of all vehicles in a hybrid application by 2040.

, Kuzumaki told Autocar both the tightening of global emission regulations and the rapid development of electric cars would kill off petrol and diesel engine vehicles.

"We expect that by 2050 we will have reduced CO2 emissions from vehicles by 90 per cent compared to the figure in 2010," said the senior Toyota exec.

The decline of the combustion engine will happen much, much earlier, says Kuzumaki, who predicts that even by 2040 just 10 per cent of cars will be petrol-powered. Even then, he says combustion engines will be assisted by a hybrid powertrain.

Toyota currently sells around 43 per cent of electrified vehicles globally and has sold more than 11 million hybrid Prius models.

Toyota's R&D boss says the car-maker is now working on an all-electric rival for cars like the Nissan LEAF that sells around 50,000 units a year. From 2020 he promises a whole range of electric cars with a driving range of around 500km.

The next big advance, according to Kuzumaki, will come in the "early 2020s" when Toyota launches pure-electric vehicles powered by solid-state batteries.

Solid-state batteries being developed by Toyota are claimed to be both smaller and safer while offering far greater performance than traditional lithium-ion batteries.

"We have more patents on solid-state batteries than any other company", said Kuzumaki.

"We are getting close to developing cars using the technology and we believe that we will be ahead of our rivals in achieving that".

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