Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to the news on November 17, in May this year, Toyota of Japan set up a new department called BEV Factory, which is responsible for the pure electric vehicle business. Takuro Kato, president of the department, gave details in a recent interview about their cooperation with BYD to develop the first Toyota electric car. He said the cooperation had taught them a lot of "things they had not been exposed to before".

Toyota hopes to produce competitive pure electric vehicles through deep cooperation with external partners. Under Takuro Kato's leadership, the "development, production and business" of Toyota's all-electric vehicles take place in the same place.

Takeo Kato partnered with BYD to produce the first Toyota electric sedan, the bZ3. The project stems from his trip to China in 2018. "it was the first time I directly faced the competitiveness of Chinese parts," he said. " After seeing the equipment and manufacturing processes that have not been used in Japan, he realized, "We may be in trouble!"

After that, Takuro Kato's dream of working in China became a reality. At a meeting of Toyota executives, Shigeki Terahashi, vice president, asked him: "We are considering a project with BYD. Can you take care of this?"

Takeo Kato was chosen as the project leader for the joint production of electric cars with BYD. He soon formed a team.

After the holiday, Takeo Kato went to BYD. It took them half a year to visit BYD's headquarters to "lay the foundation", and the team decided on the idea in 2020.

Takeo Kato is aware of China's speed of development and new technology, and he is "eager to integrate there and absorb what we do not have to further promote development."

This process needs to be constantly changed. In past Toyota new car projects, vehicle specifications had to be finalized before development started.

He explained that the first major change took place five months after the change in the vehicle's height and wheelbase. As the overall height has been reduced by 25 mm, the chassis needs to be redesigned.

"in Japan, this will bring the whole development work to a standstill," Kato said. " The bZ3, released in October 2022, is the first all-electric car developed by Toyota and BYD.

Equipped with BYD blade batteries, motors and electronic control systems, the electric car has a range of more than 600 kilometers. The e-TNGA pure electric platform used to power Toyota bZ4X and Subaru Solterra.

The first bZ3 went offline in March this year. FAW Toyota revealed that it received more than 5000 orders on its first sales day.

Since then, Toyota has announced a series of innovations to speed up the development and production efficiency of pure electric vehicles. Toyota plans to launch a new generation of electric vehicles equipped with advanced batteries, new platforms and improved manufacturing processes in 2026. Takuro Kato is currently in charge of developing new models.

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