Forty-two years ago, the automotive world was in the grip of an utterly insane obsession. Within a space of 18 months, America’s “Big Three” introduced more than a dozen new models ranging from the dirt-cheap Ford Escort and the Plymouth Reliant K to the upscale Cadillac Cimarron, with family-sized cars from Buick, Mercury, Oldsmobile, and others in-between.
...only to find that it didn’t exist. Prior to 1982, Toyota sold just one FWD car: the remarkably ugly Corolla Tercel. Just under 13 feet long and saddled in most models with an unfashionable four-speed manual transmission, the Tercel didn’t even have the modern-as-tomorrow transverse layout of a Civic or Citation. Instead, the engine was placed in a conventional front-to-back orientation and turned the front wheels through a bevel gear system, just like a late-60s Oldsmobile Toronado.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Toyota is not exactly leading the vanguard of electric-vehicle cheerleaders. Quite the contrary, in fact. Akio Toyoda, the CEO of the firm bearing his name, recently told reporters that he was part of a “silent majority” among automakers who were skeptical about the EV future. Silent, that is, except for Toyoda himself, whose reputation is stout enough for him to make public comments like that.
The reader will be forgiven if he or she briefly feels like the proverbial horse dragging a cart with a carrot always just out of reach ahead.
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