Comment by bdcravens
13 hours ago
All of the bz* models you listed are Chinese models, and while the Woodland and C-HR are listed on their US website, they aren't really available for purchase (though I did find one C-HR if I'm willing to drive 500 miles to buy it). Obviously the world auto market is greater than the US, but the US is the leading market for Toyota in terms of total units sold, so it's odd to me that if I drive to the Toyota dealership 10 minutes from my house, their game of selling cars only leaves me with one model to purchase if I'm committed to buying a BEV.
China is the biggest EV market, Europe is the second biggest, and North America is third.
For EVs the US will remain lower priority than China and Europe for a while yet. Toyota understands how to sell cars.
It's funny how this thread has gone from "Toyota can't wrap its head around not making engines" to "Toyota is not prioritizing small EV markets first".
You are correct that China is the number one market in terms of BEV sales, but the US is number two, selling more than 3-5 combined. That's an odd way to define a small EV market. Funny thing is, in terms of rankings, the US is actually a "small market" when it comes to gas-only cars.
Prior to moving to only BEVs, our family bought several Toyotas (and before that, only Hondas), and I was disappointed to find that I had no options (at the time, and in the 4 years since, between the 2 manufacturers, only 2 have come to market that I can purchase). Perhaps VW and Kia don't understand how to sell cars, but they understood how to sell them to me.
> You are correct that China is the number one market in terms of BEV sales, but the US is number two, selling more than 3-5 combined.
This is incorrect, unless you're viewing the US as a single market but the EU as multiple (which, I mean, ah, you do you, but that doesn't make any sense from an industry perspective). Last year about 1.3 million BEVs were sold in the US (a minor decline from 2024), 1.9 million BEVs were sold in the EU (up 33% YoY). In Europe more broadly defined, 2.5 million BEVs were sold (in practice, the industry largely treats EU+EFTA+UK as one market). In China, 8 million were sold, up about 25% YoY.
You can, ah, perhaps see why the US is not a top-priority market for the industry. In practice, the US _will_ get many of these Toyota models, or some variant thereof, but later. You mention VW, but they, too, treat the US as a second priority BEV market; their electric cars generally come out about a year late there if at all. Hyundai does release in the US at the same time as elsewhere (when they release at all; the Ioniq 3 will not be available in the US, for instance, because the US does not buy small cars in significant numbers).