Toyota rejects electric cars as Volkswagen vows an embrace

Bloomberg

A $255 billion debate is raging among the world’s biggest automakers.
Some think electric cars made by companies besides Tesla Inc stand the chance to be hits, while others think they’ll fail to really sell.
Toyota Motor Corp may have kicked off the green-car movement with its Prius hybrid more than 20 years ago, but the company is not nearly as bullish as rivals about the American consumer embracing EVs. Bob Carter, executive vice president of sales for Toyota Motor North America, said at a conference affiliated with this week’s New York auto show that batteries are still too expensive and place plug-in cars out of reach for many buyers.
“On electrification, we see an opportunity in North America, but it’s much further down the road,” Carter said at a forum co-hosted by the National Automobile Dealers Association. “The average vehicle costs $34,000 and for many EVs, the battery costs $34,000. The economics are not there.”
Carter commented about an hour after Scott Keogh, the chief executive officer of Volkswagen AG’s US unit, told the same audience of auto dealers and industry executives that Tesla has proven electric cars are here to stay. VW plans to sell them globally, with a US debut starting in 2022.
The German giant still dealing with the fallout from its diesel scandal that erupted almost three years ago plans to build a small, all-electric sport utility vehicle as part of an $800 million investment in its Chattanooga, Tennessee, assembly plant.