Toyota Plans To Be Done With Gas-Powered Cars By 2050

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Thirty-five years is nearly half a lifetime, but that’s how long Toyota thinks it will take the company to phase out traditional gas-powered vehicles from its product lines.

The world’s largest carmaker has unveiled a general plan that would have Toyota producing all (or mostly all) alternative-fuel vehicles by 2050.

In the short term, the company aims to grow its hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicle output over the next five years. By 2020, Toyota hopes to be selling 1.5 million hybrids, and 30,000 fuel cell vehicles, annually. It also intends to begin selling fuel cell buses in 2017, primarily for use in Japan.

The goal, explains Toyota, is for the CO2 emissions of all its new 2020 vehicles to be 22% below the company’s 2010 levels. By 2050, it expects to see a 90% reduction.

Right now, gasoline-powered vehicles account for around 85% of Toyota’s annual production.

Toyota is planning to launch its fuel cell-powered Mirai in Japan later this year, with later rollouts in Europe and the U.S. The Mirai reportedly gets more than 300 miles on a full tank of hydrogen and only takes minutes to refuel.

The company says it is making 5,680 fuel cell patents freely available to other manufacturers in the hope of fostering development and innovation of new fuel cell technology.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist