This is Toyota’s Boldest EV Rebranding Exercise Yet

tech.hindustantimes.com:

The chief executive officer of the world's biggest and most-reliable car company is stepping aside, after successfully steering the firm through deep supply-chain crises brought on by natural disasters and a pandemic over his more than decade-long reign. Under Akio Toyoda's leadership, Toyota Motor Corp. never quite took the electric path head-on like its peers and refrained from touting the brilliant future of EVs as confidently as the rest of the market.

Did he mess it up and leave the storied Japanese company on its back foot? Not quite. Toyoda, who will now be chairman and is expected to remain a strong force behind the scenes after he steps down in April, may have just played the master stroke.

Nervous in the growing shadow of Elon Musk and Tesla Inc., global carmakers have hastily talked up massive, multibillion-dollar investments, laying out their electrification plans. They've released and recalled models (because of fire and other risks), while running into serious teething troubles as EV profitability has struggled.

Toyota took a different tack. It focused on reducing emissions — at every stage of vehicle production — as the endgame. It maintained that green cars will contribute to lowering environmental damage “only when they come into widespread use.” In addition, it has taken on low-key but effective measures to do this, including working with its many tiers of suppliers and improving existing technology. Sadly, those don't get investors and analysts excited, or at least, as psyched as announcements of big dollars on futuristic spending does.

The Japanese carmaker's EV efforts have been understated and long-running: It setup an EV division in 1992 and introduced the electric RAV4 four years later. That