Toyota's EV Sales More Than Doubled In a Year, While Its Gas Car Sales Dropped 20% In China (electrek.co) 21
Toyota's EV sales have jumped 127% through September, reports Electrek:
Including Lexus, Toyota sold 309,766 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) globally through the first nine months of 2026, up 127.4% from the same period last year. Except for January (+87.5%), Toyota's EV sales have more than doubled every month this year compared with 2025...
While its EVs are catching on, Toyota Motor's global sales fell for the third straight month in September. Toyota sold 860,107 vehicles in September, down 2.2% from the previous year. The company said that although overall demand remained steady, sales in China fell, leading to lower overall sales than last year. Through September, Toyota sold 7.51 million vehicles globally, down 3.4%. In China, Toyota's sales plunged nearly 20%, marking its eighth consecutive month with lower sales. Toyota said the overall market in China "remained weak due in part to rising gasoline prices, while the market for gasoline vehicles and hybrid vehicles was particularly affected," resulting in lower sales. In the first nine months of 2026, Toyota sold just over 1.05 million vehicles in China, 18.9% fewer than in the same period last year... After the US, China is Toyota's second-largest market.
While its EVs are catching on, Toyota Motor's global sales fell for the third straight month in September. Toyota sold 860,107 vehicles in September, down 2.2% from the previous year. The company said that although overall demand remained steady, sales in China fell, leading to lower overall sales than last year. Through September, Toyota sold 7.51 million vehicles globally, down 3.4%. In China, Toyota's sales plunged nearly 20%, marking its eighth consecutive month with lower sales. Toyota said the overall market in China "remained weak due in part to rising gasoline prices, while the market for gasoline vehicles and hybrid vehicles was particularly affected," resulting in lower sales. In the first nine months of 2026, Toyota sold just over 1.05 million vehicles in China, 18.9% fewer than in the same period last year... After the US, China is Toyota's second-largest market.
Japan is between a rock and a hard place (Score:5, Interesting)
Between the US and China, Japan is between a rock and a hard place. Japanese car companies have been trying to read the US market for a while and they have had a general problem of whether to go all in or not on EVs. China with the glut of cars is another exacerbating problem.
Similarly to the US, the Japanese have a Chinese goods problem... you don't see anywhere as much stuff made locally as it used to be. Then you see articles like this -> Honda tells suppliers to cut costs in $9 billion push to fend off China, documents show [reuters.com]. I have had clients who's company makes steel blocks. Chinese steel is undercutting them on cost in a way they can't handle... they sell their stuff to clients like Toyota or Honda. It all has a very similar ring to the path the US has been on for a while.... you can't afford to make anything locally anymore because of China.
One of the reasons that Trump got into office in the US was based off of the promise of pushing back on China. Better laws on imports would primarily hurt China and help other auto makers (including the US and Japan.) They would force China to be a fair competitor. However, the current President seems to be the idiot trying to treat all countries like they are China when they clearly are not.
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And even if China is 'cheating' why doesn't the West just cheat in the same way?
I t
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And even if China is 'cheating' why doesn't the West just cheat in the same way?
When US/EU governments hands their industry money to please-pretend-we-are-still-doing-a-functioning-market-economy, the managerial class steals that money, fires the employees, guts the profitable parts out of the company, sells them piecewise, pays themselves a golden parachute from the now failing husk of a company and moves on to the next one to rinse and repeat, sometimes paying a laughable pittance back to the government in fees and taxes (bit more in bribes and super PAC donations), the unluckiest ha
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> Please enumerate how China is being unfair.
Chinese gov't subsidized battery and EV research and investment funding. They've since mostly pulled back, but the effects gov't meddling lingers.
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Chinese gov't subsidized battery and EV research and investment funding
The U.S. Federal government has spent hundreds and hundreds of millions on battery research. See, for example: https://www.energy.gov/science... [energy.gov]
The difference in the U.S. is that while the research is publicly funded, the profits are private.
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What are public profits?
> The U.S. Federal government has spent hundreds and hundreds of millions on battery research
China also heavily subsidized battery companies.
All Car Sales are Down in China (Score:4, Interesting)
I do suspect their hybrid sales in the U.S. would have been higher if they could have kept up with their Rav4 sales.
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There's is actually struggling more. All that cheap Venezuelan and Iranian gas got cut off at the wrong time.
Chinese car market is moving big time to EVs (Score:5, Interesting)
But I am currently living in Hong Kong, and every time I do a trip in mainland China it impresses how much and how quickly EVs are taking over. the large majority of recent looking cars on the road are EVs. Toyota made a late and half hearted push to EVs, it seems to be increasingly successful with them globally, but in China you have to compete with many pretty sophisticated and well priced local offerings.
I read that successful young Chinese don't even crave prestigious foreign cars like BMW, Lexus etc that much anymore, they literally consider them as "cars for parents", they tend to find their own products more cool. Well, they are not wrong: I was able to check out the Xiaomi YU7 SUV (the one that looks a little like a purosangue) and wow was that impressive. Great refinement, plus the kids adored that it has a Capybara mascot on the screen.
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Most countries follow a similar path with EV adoption. Starts slow, people are worried about range and charge times and scare articles about the batteries only lasting a couple of years. Then they see people driving them and that they are actually superior in many ways, and decide to get one themselves. At the same time, infrastructure improves.
China is ahead because they started early, and had a lot of commercial adopters. Busses went EV a decade ago, then taxis.
Re:Chinese car market is moving big time to EVs (Score:4, Interesting)
Problems for all legacy manufacturers (Score:3)
About time (Score:2)
We're renting a 2026 Toyota bZ EV while our Kia Niro PHEV is being repaired. It's a great car, easy and fun to drive, comfortable with good ergonomics (except for the square screen that juts up to block the lower part of the windshield). Toyota makes good cars, too bad it took them so long to jump on the bandwagon.
Starting from nothing (Score:2)
They spent so long pushing hydrogen and pretending like battery electric wasn't going to happen. Now that they've finally given up on hydrogen, there's nowhere to go but up.