Selling cars that burn fossil fuels as 'EVs' or 'Electrified' is toxic greenwashing. It's lying.

The truth is, Toyota aims to make a record-breaking 10.2 million vehicles in 2023 – almost all of them with a fossil fuel-burning engine inside. The carmaker plans to keep making gas guzzlers for decades more, and using “consumer choice” as an alibi.

Meanwhile our planet is on fire.

But Toyota’s new CEO has only been in the job since April, so we can’t pin it on him. Let’s give Koji Sato his first global petition as Toyota CEO, and make it so big that he can’t ignore:

Ask Toyota CEO Koji Sato to announce an ambitious phase out of all combustion engine vehicles, and demand that Toyota stop greenwashing about so-called “electrified” cars.

Greenwashing is a fraudulent marketing practice where companies give a misleading impression of their environmental impact, or the environmental features of their products or services.

A car that burns fossil fuels is not an electric vehicle (EV).

But Toyota’s marketers intentionally muddy the waters, advertising hybrid vehicles as if they were electric in some countries, and blasting electric vehicles and batteries in other countries, while promoting hybrids as “electrified” vehicles all the same. Confusing much? That’s intentional!

According to analysts at InfluenceMap, Toyota is working harder than any other carmaker to slow the shift to electric mobility, and only around 17% of its total production is estimated to be EV by the end of the decade.

Toyota’s top marketer in Australia said recently they’re “focused on the long term” – but the truth is exactly the opposite. The world’s top-selling carmaker is putting short term profits for the few before a liveable future for all.

We simply can’t afford to let Toyota prolong the fossil fuel transport age any longer. The company’s new CEO, Koji Sato, started in April 2023. Let’s tell him his honeymoon is over:

Ask the Toyota CEO to announce a phase out of combustion engine vehicles, including hybrids, effective by 2030 in leading markets and 2035 globally. And stop Toyota’s greenwashing about so-called “electrified” cars right away!

Last year we delivered a petition to Toyota’s European HQ signed by more than 110,000 members, including 10,000 Toyota drivers, demanding that the carmaker stop “lobbying to prevent electric vehicle mandates and clean air laws”. Even under former CEO Akio Toyoda, public pressure has started to move the company in the right direction.

Will you help push for more?

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