Toyota defies skeptics as stock seals best week since 2009

Detroit – Toyota Automotive Shares had their best week since 2009 on Friday as the automaker laid out a strong plan for a future of all-electric vehicles, with company heir Akio Toyoda leading the Japanese automaker. The leader of the company’s board of directors.

Toyota shares closed Friday at $164.35 on the New York Stock Exchange, down 2.3% on the day but still up 10.6% for the week. The five-day gain was the stock’s best week since April 2009, when shares rose 14.5%.

This rebound is not typical for the stock. It was only the third double-digit weekly gain in more than two decades for a relatively well-performing but mediocre stock. So far in 2023, the company’s stock price has risen by 20%.

This year’s positive growth comes as recent supply chain issues in the auto industry, including Toyota’s, have eased and the company founder’s grandson, Akio Toyoda, announced plans to transition from CEO to CEO after leading the automaker for more than 13 years. chairman.

Akio Toyoda stepped down as CEO on April 1 and was replaced by Koji Sato, who has been criticized by some environmental groups for not going all out on electric vehicles and continuing to produce hybrids and plug-in hybrids such as the Prius. and investor criticism. and Prius Prime.

While ramping up investment in electric vehicles, Toyota executives see such cars and trucks as one, not the only, solution to meeting increasingly stringent global emissions standards and achieving carbon neutrality.

In an effort to dispel doubts about its strategy, the automaker gave a rare behind-the-scenes look at its future plans in Japan this week.

“Management has rarely disclosed details of the technologies being developed in the past, and we sense the new management team’s commitment to securing competitive strength through electrification and intelligence,” JPMorgan analyst Akira Kishimoto said in a note to investors this week. promise.”

Ahead of its annual meeting on Wednesday, Toyota outlined plans for a new generation of electric vehicles to compete with industry leaders tesla and China’s BYD. The company said it plans to roll out next-generation electric vehicles starting in 2026, including cars with its much-touted “solid-state batteries” by 2027 or 2028.

Compared with today’s electric vehicles using lithium-ion batteries, solid-state batteries are lighter, have higher energy density, and provide greater range at a lower cost.

Toyota’s electric vehicle range target is 1,000 kilometers, or 620 miles, said Takero Kato, president of Toyota’s electric vehicle plant. The plant aims to produce about 1.7 million vehicles by 2030, he said.

UBS analyst Kohei Takahashi said on Tuesday: “We believe the strategic focus for 2025-30 is on differentiation (in terms of technology and business model) rather than scale, and the company’s strong ability to develop technology for this is a long-term positive. ” in the investor note.

Following the announcement, Toyota shareholders on Wednesday approved the company’s new leadership and rejected a shareholder proposal that would have required Toyota to review its climate-related lobbying efforts by voting on company recommendations.

— CNBC’s michael bloom and Lim Hui Jie contributed to this report.