Making itself a set of six environmental challenges to be achieved by 2050, a pioneer in the eco-friendly hybrid vehicle technology, Toyota has managed to save 67 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) being released to the atmosphere through vehicle emission for the past two decades.
Since the launch of the world’s first mass-produced hybrid vehicle with the Toyota Prius in 1997 and up to May 2016, Toyota has sold over nine million hybrid vehicles showcasing its environmental initiatives across all aspects of business.
As the automaker behind the world’s first hybrid vehicle, this initiative had managed to save 25 million kiloliters of gasoline being burnt and emitting 67 million tons of CO2 released to the atmosphere. It would have needed about 22,000 sq km of rain forest to absorb the amount of CO2 if released to the environment.
Toyota believes that tackling the issue of carbon emissions related to vehicles is a shared responsibility between governments, automakers and road users, which requires continued collaboration.
The automobile giant recently announced in Japan that its approach is to continually improve its technologies to reduce CO2 emissions at all stages of the vehicle lifecycle, including development and design, production, logistics and sales.
At the development and design stage, Toyota takes a two-pronged approach to reduce fossil fuel consumption as this is crucial to reducing CO2 emissions. This is done through introducing fuelefficient vehicles such as hybrid vehicles and the development of vehicles that use alternative energy sources such as fuel cell vehicles and electric vehicles.
Toyota’s research into such environmentally friendly vehicles dates back to 1968 when Toyota first started development of a hybrid system. Among the advanced features of Toyota’s hybrid vehicles is Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive, an intelligent system which can seamlessly switch between the electric motor and petrol engine or run off the combined power of both, depending on the driving conditions.
For environmentally friendly cars to contribute to the environment, Toyota recognizes that the use of environmentally friendly vehicles needs to increase as a proportion of all vehicles sold. To further promote their adoption, Toyota offers a continually expanding line-up of hybrid vehicles in every vehicle segment from compact passenger cars to SUVS and commercial vehicles. Toyota also recognizes that for hybrids to increase in popularity, they need to be as reliable as conventional vehicles. To address this, Toyota places a strong emphasis on its hybrid batteries which are used to power the electric motor components of these vehicles. Its batteries are manufactured by Primearth EV Energy, a company that conducts various endurance and reliability lab tests on the batteries to ensure quality.
Hybrid technology is also the base technology for vehicles that use alternative energy sources such as plugin hybrids, electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles which Toyota has been developing in line with its approach to offer vehicles of diverse energy sources.
Source : 07-10-2016 Daily Mirror
