Speaking to Automotive News, Toyoda said that while there is a drive for electric sports cars even within Toyota, he prefers the feeling of a petrol engine.
“There will always be people inside Toyota passionate about developing electric sports cars,” said Toyoda.
“But for me, as the master driver, my definition of a sports car is something with the smell of gasoline and a noisy engine.”
Toyoda has long been a supporter of internal combustion engines, both for every-day commuter vehicles right up to the performance end of the spectrum.
His comments are backed up by long-running rumours of a revival of the Toyota Celica and MR2, which will be added to the brand’s growing stable of Gazoo Racing sports cars.
While reports from as recently as late 2023 indicated these models would be underpinned by an electric vehicle platform, however at Tokyo Auto Salon in January, Toyota revealed the GR Yaris ‘M Concept’, powered by a new turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine mounted behind the rear seats.
This provided the best indication of what will power the revived MR2, and gave weight to previous reports from Japan that a turbocharged 2.0-litre engine would not only power the mid-engined sports car, but also a front-engined coupe (Celica).
Toyoda’s reluctance to make his brand’s sports cars as EVs may not be surprising, given his reluctance to race battery-powered vehicles.
When asked whether he’d ever compete in an EV racing series, Toyoda told Automotive News it’s unlikely we’ll see him on the track without an engine powering him.
“No! It’s not exciting, because you won’t be able to go around the circuit for more than an hour,” Toyoda said.
“The kind of races I enter are mostly endurance races, so with the current BEVs (battery-electric vehicles), it’s not going to be a race of the cars. It’s a race of charging time or battery exchange or something. The next master driver will have to take on that challenge. That’s their job.”
Despite his reluctance to race EVs, Toyoda has piloted cars powered by hydrogen, which Toyota has been investing in internally combusted liquid hydrogen as an alternative to petrol.
Prototypes of its GR Corolla and GR Yaris hot hatches have been raced in some low-volume racing series, using hydrogen rather than high-octane unleaded petrol.
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