What does that even mean? The logic in their “argument” sounds like so much marketing speak and (confusing) mixed false “facts”.

Here is a detailed article from the US EPA. For anyone who is interested, give it a read. This is what the government’s environmental scientists say after much study of the matter.

https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths#:~:text=FACT%3A%20The%20greenhouse%20gas%20emissions%20associated%20with%20an%20electric%20vehicle%20over%20its%20lifetime%20are%20typically%20lower%20than%20those%20from%20an%20average%20gasoline%2Dpowered%20vehicle%2C%20even%20when%20accounting%20for%20manufacturing.

“Some studies have shown that making a typical EV can create more carbon pollution than making a gasoline car. This is because of the additional energy required to manufacture an EV’s battery. Still, over the lifetime of the vehicle, total GHG emissions associated with manufacturing, charging, and driving an EV are typically lower than the total GHGs associated with a gasoline car. That’s because EVs have zero tailpipe emissions and are typically responsible for significantly fewer GHGs during operation (see Myth 1 above).”

If you take out the battery from the equation, Toyota is claiming 8 PHEV cars to every one EV. That means it is making ICE engines, gear boxes, differentials, body shells etc. for those 8 cars. Just on that metric alone, aside from the battery, the carbon footprint of their 8 cars would be higher than the carbon footprint of a single EV.

By comparison EVs are much simpler. No engines; just a single motor at the front wheels or rear wheels for budget models or both for cheaper AWDs. Or they might have 4 Electric motors. One at each wheel on the higher end models or SUV/Truck models. Either way, there are no complicated engines to manufacture and no crazy complicated analog gear boxes, differentials etc. with thousands of moving parts requiring complicated and intricate manufacturing.

Lastly, I know of only the Toyota Rav4 Plugin Hybrid which gives a range of over 40 miles and has a battery size of 18.1KWh. The rest, the Prius Plugin Hybrid for example, has a range around 30 miles with a battery of 13.8KWh.

So if we take the Toyota Rav4 PHEV as having the average battery size required for a 40 mile range PHEV by Toyota and multiply that by 8, that means Toyota is comparing their 8 PHEVs to a pure EV with a 144.8 KWh battery pack!!! 🤯

Apart from the Hummer EV, I don’t think any other EV car or SUV comes with a battery pack that size.

This is just Toyota trying to fudge the facts to justify their insane hardline on hybrids and trying very hard to hide their failure in the EV market.