Don’t think there is an ounce of principle in this either way. Toyota bet the farm on hybrids and hydrogen. Turns out EVs are the future, the one thing they bet would never happen. As a result they are now 10+ years behind everybody else in battery technology. If they pivoted and went 100% EV today, it would still be years before the models they start designing today make it to dealer showrooms. And here’s more before they made any kind of the per unit profit that current gas and hybrids do.

So they see laws like 100% EV by 2035 and they panic, because they aren’t ready to do that and probably aren’t going to be.

Thus, they try and stop EV mandates. And that gives them some unlikely allies, namely climate deniers.

It’s too bad that the company that made hybrids popular is now on the wrong side of history.