Akio Toyoda, Chairman, Toyota Motor Corporation
Yoshikazu Tsuno | Gamma-Rapho | Getty Images
Detroit – Toyota’s The stock had its best week since 2009 after the company revealed its next-generation electric vehicle plans and shareholders voted for new leadership, including former CEO Akio Toyoda as chairman.
Shares of Toyota hit a 52-week high on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, closing at $168.18 a share, up 1.6% during the session and about 13% for the week.
If the stock can maintain its current momentum, it would be the best week for the stock since April 2009, when it rose 14.5%. It also marked the third double-digit weekly gain in more than two decades.
The notable gains in the relatively modest stock came after more details emerged on the company’s electric vehicle strategy, which some have previously criticized as not aggressive enough.
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-based 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 lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles, solid-state batteries are lighter, have higher energy density, and provide greater range at a lower cost.
People arrive for the Toyota Motor Annual Shareholders’ Meeting in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, on June 14, 2023. Toyota is under pressure from large institutional investors to resign Chairman Akio Toyoda over lack of enthusiasm for electric vehicles.
Stern | AFP | Getty Images
Takero Kato, president of the BEV plant, said Toyota’s EV target range is 1,000 kilometers (620 miles). The all-electric vehicle factory aims to produce about 1.7 million vehicles by 2030, he said.
“The proactive disclosure of a new technology strategy featuring next-generation batteries and gigacasting counters the notion that pure electric vehicles are lagging behind,” Morgan Stanley analyst Shinji Kakiuchi said in an investor note on Wednesday. Quantitative disclosure of future pure electric vehicle profits.” .
Following the announcement, Toyota shareholders on Wednesday voted on company recommendations, including leadership approval and voted down a shareholder proposal requiring Toyota to review its climate-related lobbying.
Shareholders also approved the company’s new leadership and board, including the appointment of Chief Executive Koji Sato as director and Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the automaker’s founder, as chairman.
Toyota’s stock on the New York Stock Exchange is up about 23% This year, as the auto industry continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic and supply chain issues that have contributed to record low levels of auto inventories.
Toyota’s gains put it in the middle of the pack among Japanese automaker stocks, ahead of or on par with the Detroit automaker and behind shares of Tesla, which more than doubles in 2023.
Here’s how other automaker stocks have performed this year compared to Toyota:
Year-to-date auto stocks
*The shares of these companies are traded in the United States as American Depositary Receipts.
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