There are rumors that Toyota’s famous Aygo could be turned into a purpose-built EV. With this, the next generation model would end Toyotas deal with Peugeot and Citroen, splitting it away from sister vehicle to become an individual electric city car.
The Aygo is produced in a single factory alongside other popular city cars like the
Peugeot 108 and
Citroen C1, and because of this, these 3 models share the majority of their mechanical components. The new next-generation Aygo could take a different route however, venturing into the EV market by adopting an electric powertrain.
The Japanese car brand’s European president & CEO Johan van Zyl believes the Aygo is the best-suited candidate for the new drivetrain. He suggested that even though Toyota has a hybrid car covering every sector of the car market, the smallest car class which is the A-segment (where the Aygo competes) would require a different approach and solution.
He said “We’ve always said that we see a spectrum of powertrain technologies - not necessarily competing with each other but just the technology that suits each application best will be utilised by the customer,” van Zyl said. “We see a natural evolution of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, pure-electric vehicle and fuel-cell vehicle.
We already have some electric vehicles undergoing trials here in Europe - short-range, inner-city transport. So I think that in the future, if you look at that spectrum of technologies that we offer, then EVs will be part of that.”
With EV’s becoming increasingly more popular,
Toyota could introduce car sharing and monthly payment lease schemes as a way to make them stand out against other EV competitors. This would also help convert drivers who are put off by high prices and lower mile ranges. Van Zyl believes ”the sharing economy is one of the shining economies, and it could be the correct direction. But it’s also a difficult business model to make work, because at the end of the day, whether somebody is sharing or using it, somebody has to pay for it. The asset must be funded. It’s an interesting business model but not an easy one”.
With EV sales on the up, it’s no surprise that huge car brands like Toyota are investing lots in research and electric vehicle technology. Over the last 3 years, EV car sales have increased immensely worldwide, with June 2016 figures 49% higher than June 2015.
Graph taken from:www.ev-volumes.com/country/total-world-plug-in-vehicle-volumes/
We can’t wait for the next generation Aygo – especially if it’s electric! So far, there has been no mention of dates or deadlines about a release, but once we hear of anymore developments we will provide an update!
Image credits:JuliusKielaitis / Shutterstock.com