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2022 is a difficult year for Toyota. Data show that Toyota's cumulative sales in China fell 0.2% year-on-year to 1,940,600 vehicles in 2022, the first year-on-year decline in China in a decade. As for the reason for the year-on-year decline in sales, Toyota said the epidemic led to a sharp drop in store attendance, which in turn seriously affected sales performance. However,"Auto Industry Concern" believes that the deeper reason may be related to Toyota's current slow electric transformation and its failure to launch competitive new energy vehicles in the auto market. Toyota, perhaps aware of this, announced a major personnel change shortly before the new year to "put out the fire."

On January 26, Toyota announced a high-level personnel change. Takeshi Uchiyamada, Toyota's current chairman, will step down as chairman from April 1 and be replaced by Akio Toyoda, Toyota's chief brand officer and Lexus brand head Koji Sato, according to Toyota's official website.

Akio Toyoda, 66, grandson of Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda, has been CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation for 13 years since 2009, according to information. Koji Sato, 53, graduated from Waseda University in 1992 and joined Toyota, where he has worked for 30 years so far. In early 2016, Sato was appointed chief engineer of Lexus International, Toyota's luxury car brand, and in April of the following year, he became the head of the luxury car brand. In September 2020, Sato was appointed president of Toyota Motorsport and high-performance road car brand Gazoo Racing, and in January 2021, he was appointed Toyota Chief Brand Officer and Lexus Brand Head.

This is Toyota's CEO replacement after 13 years. Toyota Motor said that the current chairman, Mr. Yamada, will step down, so Mr. Toyoda will replace him, but Mr. Yamada will remain on the company's board of directors. For the Toyota personnel changes, Toyoda said that the new management team "shoulders the mission of transforming Toyota into a mobile travel company." In fact, people who know a little about Toyota Zhangnan know that Toyota Zhangnan is a staunch opponent of pure electric vehicles and has little interest in electric vehicles. When talking about new energy strategy in public, Toyota usually puts hybrid cars, pure electric cars and fuel cell vehicles on the same plane to show that Toyota does not only have pure electric cars in its new energy strategy. At the same time, Toyota Zhangnan has repeatedly expressed that electric vehicles are over-hyped. It wasn't until December 2019, when Akio Toyoda personally launched 15 electric cars on the platform and announced a 10-year electric car plan, that the idea changed slightly.

The industry believes that the main reason for Akio Toyoda's resignation as CEO of Toyota Motor may be related to Toyota's new energy strategy. Foreign media reported that Toyota is currently revising its electrification strategy. While Toyota is accelerating its electric transformation, Toyota Akio seems to be a bit "unable to keep up." In the Chinese market, Toyota has two joint venture automobile enterprises, GAC Toyota and FAW Toyota. Up to now, Toyota has laid out two electric vehicles in China, but the progress of the models is not smooth. Take Toyota's first pure electric vehicle bZ4X model as an example. bZ4X is made by FAW Toyota and GAC Toyota. Both parties announced the pre-sale price of the models on April 28,2022. It was originally scheduled to be officially launched on June 17,2022. However, due to the uncertainty of the supply chain, Subsequently, the launch conference of the new car was postponed by the brand party. It was not until October 10,2022 that GAC Toyota bZ4X was officially launched. The price range of the car was 199,800 - 287,800 yuan. It provided two power forms: precursor and four-wheel drive. According to the data of new car traffic insurance, the cumulative sales volume of GAC Toyota bZ4X since its launch is 2094 vehicles. In addition, Toyota's second bZ series model-bZ3 has been pre-sold, and three new models have been launched, with a pre-sale price range of 189,800 - 219,800 yuan. The difference from the first model bZ4X is that bZ3 is only produced and sold by FAW Toyota, and GAC Toyota does not participate in production.

It is undeniable that under the leadership of Akio Toyoda, Toyota has had good sales results in the past, both in domestic and overseas markets. However, with the changes in the automobile market, electrification has become the general trend of future automobile development, Toyota Zhang man has repeatedly questioned the transformation of electric vehicles, obviously Toyota Zhang man some "can not keep up with the times", at this time to retreat for Toyota Zhang man may be a good thing. Koji sato, who will lead toyota's accelerated electrification transition after taking over as ceo, certainly has a difficult task ahead of him. Data show that Lexus led by Sato in 2022 also encountered sales Waterloo in China. According to the data of new car traffic insurance, Lexus sales volume in 2022 was 184,000 vehicles, down 16.06% year-on-year, showing a sharp drop in sales for the first time in 16 years since its entry into China. It should be noted that this decline is based on the preferential amplification of most Lexus models, but even with such a large promotion discount, it is still difficult to reverse Lexus 'downward trend in the Chinese market.

According to Toyota's previously announced development plan, Toyota will invest $35 billion to accelerate its electric transformation by 2030, when Toyota will launch 30 electric vehicles and Lexus, Toyota's brand, will be fully transformed into an all-electric brand. It is unclear whether Sato will be able to get Toyota into the electric track in a short time, but for Toyota, the more serious problem now is to stop Toyota and Lexus sales decline in China.

According to the latest retail data released by the Passenger Association, the sales volume of domestic narrow passenger car market in 2022 was 20.543 million vehicles, with a year-on-year growth of 1.9%, including 5.674 million new energy passenger vehicles, with a year-on-year growth of 90.0%. The Association predicts that the cumulative sales volume of domestic new energy passenger vehicles will reach 8.5 million in 2023, when the competition in the new energy vehicle market will be more intense.

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