White House senior adviser John Podesta said Toyota Motor Corp “had been the laggard” on producing electric vehicles but is now “fully committed” after he met recently with senior company officials at the Japanese automaker.
“I think they’re going to stick with plug-in hybrids for a while, maybe longer than some of the other companies but they’re fully now committed under their new leadership to electrification,” Podesta told Reuters reporters and editors in a roundtable meeting on Tuesday.
He met with Toyota Research Institute CEO Gill Pratt and Toyota North America chief administrative officer Christopher Reynolds.
