There was a time, not too long ago, when Toyota was automotive magnolia – ever-present, without you ever actually being aware of why. but the news pages of this week’s magazine are additionally evidence of a paradigm shift in the brand’s technique and fortunes: Toyota, it seems, is appropriately on a roll.
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Indeed, as Toyota’s European chief Matt Harrison detailed to UK media last week, his dealers currently have an buy bank extending beyond four months. Harrison expects to sell 1.3 million automobiles in Europe in 2022, a record increase of nearly a quarter of a million automobiles in just one year.

Toyota to launch Europe-specific hybrid and electric automobile platform

Why has this happened? We shouldn’t discount the ethos introduced several years ago by boss Akio Toyoda, that Toyota must never make a dull automobile again. It took time for it to bleed through the corporate culture, but now Toyota has the GR Yaris hot hatch and the GR 86 coupe on its books – and the confidence to say that the second of those automobiles will be used for just two years.
At the other end of the range, though, there’s a real feeling among the firm’s executives and engineers that while Toyota is making a lot more interesting automobiles than ever before, the market has also moved towards them. That early investment in hybrid powertrains, and the huge experience gained with it, is now proving indispensable as the company rolls out automobiles like the small Yaris cross and, this week, the Corolla Cross, a full-sized family
SUV with the current electrified powertrain.
Next up will be pure-electric cars, of course, and it’s interesting to hear Toyota freely admitting that the bZ4X may not have the greatest WLTP range in the class – but that the firm has been doubly cautious about making it achievable, because that’s a lot more beneficial to customers than a few a lot more fictional miles on the official numbers. The stakes are high, but based on the evidence of the past few years, a pure-electric Toyota will be a strong contender.
Check out the current on Toyota’s first bespoke all-electric automobile – the bZ4x…