Toyota unveils an all-electric China SUV that's priced to compete in the world's most fierce car market
Toyota has been slow to embrace electric cars. Chair Akio Toyoda has, at times, criticized a single-minded rush towards EVs and instead touted a 'multi-pathway' approach that includes hybrids and hydrogen cars.
But the world's largest carmaker may be warming up that segment of the market, driven by China's obsession with EVs.
On Thursday, Toyota rolled out an electric SUV in China. The 5-seat bZ3X is developed by GAC Toyota, Toyota's Chinese joint venture.
Toyota has previously struggled to keep up with Chinese automakers in the battery EV market, but its latest vehicle is priced to compete with Chinese automakers.
The entry-level model is priced at just under 110,000 yuan ($15,170) making it Toyota's cheapest EV in China. A model that includes an advanced driver assistance system that can handle tasks like lane changing and merging starts at 139,800 yuan ($19,279).
China is the world's largest EV market, and competition among automakers—both startups and established manufacturers—is intense. Chinese carmakers not only compete on price, but now also include advanced features to stand out. BYD, the leading Chinese brand, went as far as to include advanced driver assistance systems in its latest model, priced under $10,000.
Peng Baolin, GAC Toyota's vice president of sales, wrote on Weibo that the company received more than 10,000 orders within an hour of the SUV's launch.
The company also said the car was 'so popular that the server crashed,' according to Electrek.
Toyota's choice of battery might have helped bring costs down. The bZ3X uses lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, which are more affordable than the standard lithium-ion batteries. LFP batteries, heavily used by Chinese carmakers like BYD, forgo some range in exchange for lower costs.
The new SUV comes just a month after Toyota announced it was building a new wholly-owned plant in Shanghai, focusing on Lexus batteries and battery EVs. At the time, Toyota said that its Chinese employees would lead development of the company's made-in-China cars in order to better serve domestic customers.
'Our goal is to become a company that is more loved and supported by the people of China,' chief financial officer Yoichi Miyazaki said.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
May CPI preview: Inflation expected to tick higher as tariff uncertainty lingers
May's Consumer Price Index (CPI) is expected to show prices increased at a slightly faster clip than in April. The report, due Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. ET, comes as investors closely watch for any signs that President Trump's tariffs are impacting what consumers pay. According to Bloomberg data, headline inflation is expected to have accelerated slightly to 2.4% in May from 2.3% in April, which marked the lowest yearly increase since February 2021. Month-over-month prices are estimated to rise 0.2%, matching April's increase. On a "core" basis, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, CPI is expected to have risen 2.9% over the past year in May, a slight acceleration from April's 2.8%. Monthly core price increases are anticipated to rise 0.3%, ahead of April's 0.2%. The report reflects the time period about a month after Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcements shook markets and businesses. Since then, many reciprocal tariffs have been paused, but the 10% baseline duties for most countries remain in place. Mexico and Canada continue to face fentanyl-related tariffs, and industry-specific tariffs on steel, aluminum, and autos remain unchanged. Tariffs on China remain significant, with the effective tariff rate on Chinese goods hovering around 30%. "May's CPI report will be an important test of the speed and magnitude to which higher tariff rates are being passed along to the consumer," said the Wells Fargo economics team, led by Sarah House, in a preview note. House expects a modest rise in overall and core inflation from higher goods prices but doesn't foresee a big jump in this report. Still, economists there say the risk of higher prices later this year remains, a view shared by many on Wall Street. Read more: How to protect your savings against inflation "Going forward, the impact of tariffs will likely provide a somewhat larger boost to monthly inflation, and we expect monthly core CPI inflation of around 0.35% over the next few months," Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs wrote, noting a "sharp acceleration" in most core goods categories but limited impact on core services inflation, at least in the near term. Meanwhile, BNP Paribas said that although May's core inflation reading could register its strongest monthly gain since Q2 2023, hotter prints are expected in June and July. According to BNP, price increases from tariffs typically appear two to three months after implementation. However, broader uncertainty about the timing and impact of tariff-related price changes has weighed on the outlook. "The Trump administration's 'yo yo' approach to implementing tariffs and attendant uncertainties about their timing, form, and longevity may encourage firms to adopt a policy of strategic patience around increasing prices," Andy Schneider, senior US economist at BNP Paribas, wrote in a note to clients last week. "This could potentially delay tariff-induced inflation, in addition to leading to an ultimately messier and more persistent response." Echoing this uncertainty, Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic recently said constant tariff changes are "making it much harder to declare with any conviction that price increases from tariffs will be a one-time event." Markets still expect the Fed to hold interest rates steady at its policy meeting next week. Allie Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Commentary: How Chinese imports are skirting Trump's tariffs
There's a huge drop underway in Chinese imports entering the US — from China. But Chinese goods are arriving anyway, via other Asian nations such as Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. That may be good news for shoppers, because it means cheap Chinese goods are still making it to US stores despite the higher costs imposed by President Trump's new import taxes. But shifting trade patterns will surely get Trump's attention, and the tariff-happy president could easily put a stop to it by raising import taxes on what are turning out to be loophole countries. Trump's aggressive tariff regime is meant to make most imported products more expensive to encourage more domestic production. But Trump's uneven approach has created opportunities for a kind of trade arbitrage that was all but inevitable. As things stand now, Trump has imposed new import taxes of 30% on most goods from China but only 10% on imports from most other nations. That 20% differential is a big advantage for the less-tariffed countries. Sure enough, trade data shows that Chinese exporters are almost certainly "transshipping" goods to the US by passing them through neighboring countries. Chinese data shows that exports to the US dropped 35% in May compared with a year earlier. But during the same period, Chinese exports to six other Asian nations jumped 15%, including a 22% increase in exports to Vietnam and Thailand, a 12% jump in exports to Singapore, and an 11% rise in shipments to Indonesia. "[China's] direct exports to the US are down sharply, but its exports to all kinds of places across Asia are up massively," economist Robin Brooks of the Brookings Institution posted on social media on June 9. "These are obviously transshipments to the US via third countries."The US Department of Commerce hasn't yet published trade data for May, but data for April shows the mirror image of the Chinese data. Imports from China fell 20% from 2024 levels, while there was a 48% jump in Vietnamese imports, a 32% jump in shipments from Thailand, and a 16% increase in goods from Malaysia. Trade experts have been predicting this shift since Trump began imposing new import taxes in February, because it's the same thing that happened during the trade wars Trump waged during his first presidential term. Vietnam, in particular, was a big beneficiary of Trump's tariffs on Chinese imports in 2018 and 2019. While imports from China fell by 11% from 2017 to 2019, imports from Vietnam boomed by 43%. Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet Since Trump's first trade war, many Asian producers and their US customers have carefully diversified so they're not overdependent on China. The US now imports less clothing from China, as one example, and more from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and India. Transshipment can mean that some products are fully assembled in China and simply make a brief stopover in another country before heading to the US so that their country of origin isn't China. Governments tend to discourage that, however, because those countries gain little from merely serving as a way station for Chinese products headed to the US. Plus, it may attract unwanted attention from Trump. Chinese companies are also increasingly building their own production facilities outside of China. "There are two ways to transship," Jason Judd, executive director of the Global Labor Institute at Cornell University, told Yahoo Finance. "In one, you're just cheating. In the other, you disassemble your product in China and send the inputs and the know-how to a new place." In Cambodia, for example, most of the companies making goods that go to the US have Chinese ownership. Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs — on ice for the moment — are meant, in part, to target countries that are way stations for Chinese products. When Trump announced those nation-by-nation tariffs on April 2, Asian trade partners other than China got hit with some of the highest rates. The new tariff on Chinese imports was 34%. For Cambodia, the new tariff rate was 49%. Vietnam: 46%. Thailand: 36%. Indonesia: 32%. Malaysia: 24%. Those rates weren't based specifically on transshipment of Chinese products but on the size of the trade deficit in goods each country has with the US. The larger the deficit, the higher the tariff. Read more: 5 ways to tariff-proof your finances Trump suspended those tariffs on April 9, following a week of mayhem in financial markets. That eventually left the tariff rates at 30% on most imports from China and 10% on most imports from every other country. But Trump said the reciprocal tariffs could go back into effect if nations don't make trade deals with him one by one by a July 9 deadline. By then, a boom in imports from Asian nations other than China will give Trump plenty of justification for more reciprocal tariffs. But he may choose to overlook it. Trump seems to have a much bigger trade beef with China than he does with other nations. His advisers are also telling him that high tariffs across the board could mean shocking price increases on clothing, electronics, appliances, and many other things just as Americans start their back-to-school shopping this summer. After that will come a Christmas season possibly starring Trump as the Grinch. So Trump might end up talking tough on China and looking the other way as the country's products enter the side door. That would make stealthy Chinese imports an unintended innovation triggered by Trump's trade war. Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Bluesky and X: @rickjnewman. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices.
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
China increases presence in Brazilian ports
June 10 (UPI) -- China is consolidating its control over critical logistical hubs in Brazil through its state-owned enterprises. Its latest move in Latin America was the acquisition of a 70% stake in Vast Infraestructura, which operates the Port of Açu's only private transshipment terminal for very large crude carriers in Rio de Janeiro. The $714 million deal puts China Merchants Port Holdings, or CMPort, in charge of a vital asset for Brazil's energy exports, as nearly 30% of the country's crude oil passes through Açu. This marks another major move by CMPort, one of the world's largest port operators and a Chinese government-backed company. In 2018, CMPort acquired 90% of TCP Participações, which operates South America's largest container terminal at the Port of Paranaguá. Beyond these direct purchases, Chinese firms are involved in projects at the Port of Santos -- Latin America's busiest port -- as well as in the construction of a new terminal in Maranhão, in northeastern Brazil. Investments are not limited to ports, but also extend to the construction of rail infrastructure to transport grains, minerals, and other commodities to Asia. Brazil is just one focus of China's global port strategy. In Peru, the Chancay mega-port, built and operated by China, is set to become a major trade hub between South America and Asia, potentially reducing reliance on the Panama Canal. Chinese state-owned enterprises are executing a broad strategy to acquire and develop port infrastructure worldwide. "This undoubtedly increases their geopolitical influence and secures vital strategic interests. It also consolidates a stronger global maritime presence and achieves effective control over crucial sea routes," said Chile's Center for Competitive Intelligence Research and Studies.
