Toyota chief says California gas-powered car ban will be ‘tough’ to meet

president Toyota Motor Corporation He said this week that sticking with California’s plan to ban gas-emissions vehicles would be “difficult to achieve,” and that battery-powered cars would take longer to operate than “mainstream media” believed.

“Realistically, it seems really difficult to achieve,” Toyota Motor Corporation President Akio Toyoda told reporters through an interpreter on Thursday. New states in California.

“Like the self-driving cars we were all supposed to drive now, electric cars will take longer to become mainstream than the media wants us to believe,” Toyoda told car dealers at the event.

Toyoda’s comments come after the California Air Resources Board, under the direction of the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, adopted rules that would require all new cars, vans and SUVs to be electric or hydrogen-powered by 2035.

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Toyota Motor Corporation President Akio Toyoda (Photo by YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images/Getty Images)

In August, Toyota said it would boost its planned investment in a new battery plant in the United States from $1.29 billion to $3.8 billion, in part due to increased consumer demand for electric vehicles. Toyota, California’s best-selling auto brand, last month recognized the state’s authority to set vehicle emissions standards under the US Clean Air Act.

“This is the most impactful step our state can take to combat climate change,” Newsom Said in 2020 Determine the emissions plan. “For many decades, we have allowed cars to pollute the air our children and families breathe. Californians shouldn’t have to worry if our cars are causing our kids asthma. Our cars shouldn’t make wildfires worse — and create more days full of smoky air. Cars shouldn’t melt rivers. icy glaciers or raise the sea level, threatening our cherished shores and coasts.”

Toyoda, the grandson of the company’s founder, said in a video on Wednesday that “playing to win means playing all the cards in the deck – not just a select few. So that’s our strategy, and we’re sticking to it.”

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California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks to reporters during a visit to the Antakya water treatment plant (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)/Getty Images)

Compare Toyoda the automaker to a “department store” that sells a variety of vehicles to customers with different needs.

Toyoda outlined the challenges he faces EV اعتماد Approval Including the effects on the electrical grid and the lack of easy access to electricity for nearly a billion people around the world.

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The Toyota RAV4 Prime 2021 electric vehicle recharges its batteries on November 5, 2021 at a charging station next to City Hall in Charlotte, Vermont. ((Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)/Getty Images)

This week, Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochhol said her state is ready for it Adopt a similar plan to California, saying it directed a state environmental agency to propose and finalize rules to establish annual increased zero-emissions vehicle rules starting in 2026 that eliminate sales of new gasoline-only cars by 2035.

Reuters contributed to this report