Toyota Turns Its Hybrid Lead Into a Lobbying Line

InfluenceMap ranked Toyota last among 15 global automakers for climate lobbying in May 2024, with a D grade and a 29% electric share forecast for 2030. The London research group scored the company’s comments on climate rules across seven regions, then set those grades beside S&P Global Mobility’s production forecasts.

The 29% mix sits next to a ceiling Chairman Akio Toyoda has already named. He has said battery-electric cars will top out around 30% of the market, with hybrids, fuel cells and engines covering the rest, which is the same hybrid-first politics the scorecard punishes.

Toyota Still Owns the Bottom of the Scorecard

The 15-automaker climate advocacy analysis is InfluenceMap’s May 2024 update of a tracker first published in 2022, when Toyota already sat at the bottom. Ten of the 15 companies received a D or D+, meaning their lobbying is out of line with a 1.5C path. Tesla was the only automaker graded B, the sole mark InfluenceMap treats as aligned with science-based policy.

Every company except Tesla had argued against at least one rule meant to push electric cars. Toyota’s D came with a 45% organization score, which measures how the firm itself talks to governments, and a 41% engagement intensity, among the highest in the set. Suzuki’s organization score was even lower, at 43%, but Toyota’s heavier volume of comments is what put it last.

THE MAY 2024 SCORECARD

• Toyota’s grade: D, the lowest of the 15 automakers.
• On-path makers: Only Tesla at 100%, Mercedes-Benz at 71%, and BMW at 69% meet the 66% electric share for 2030.
• Industry forecast: 53% of light-duty output electric in 2030, made up of 44% battery, 9% plug-in hybrid, and 0% fuel cell.
• The gap: 13 points short of the IEA 1.5C path of 66%.

Ben Youriev, a director at InfluenceMap, tied the grades to the factory plans in the same breath, and put Japanese laggards at the centre of the delay.

Automakers’ substandard electric vehicle plans and negative advocacy strategies are driving the climate crisis. Without an immediate gear change from them and their industry associations to reform their climate policy engagement they will continue to weaken and delay climate rules globally, steering the world to the brink.

Ben Youriev, Director, InfluenceMap, May 14, 2024

He added that while electric sales keep rising, negative lobbying from laggard automakers, particularly in Japan, to protect combustion-engine investments remains one of the biggest obstacles to science-based climate policy. Toyota still publishes top-line support for the Paris Agreement, including in a December 2025 climate-policy report. The D is about the rules it then tries to change.

The 29 Percent Mix Is Also the Lobbying Line

InfluenceMap’s 29% figure for Toyota is battery-electric, plug-in hybrid and fuel-cell output combined, drawn from the February 2024 S&P Global Mobility dataset. Toyoda’s 30% line, given to Toyota Times, the company’s in-house outlet, is a ceiling for battery-electric cars alone. They are different measures, and they still land in the same neighbourhood, far below 66%.

No matter how much progress BEVs make, I think they will still only have a 30 per cent market share. Then, the remaining 70 per cent will be HEVs, FCEVs, and hydrogen engines. And I think engine cars will definitely remain. I think this is something that customers and the market will decide, not regulatory values or political power.

Akio Toyoda, Chairman, Toyota Times

That is not a side argument. It is the product plan spoken as policy. Toyota sells more hybrids than any other carmaker and still treats the Prius-era mix as the practical climate answer, including in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, the three markets InfluenceMap flagged for the heaviest pushback. In 2023 regulatory comments, Toyota argued to weaken greenhouse-gas standards in the US and Australia and fought tight zero-emission vehicle mandates in Canada and the UK.

The company also disclosed 575 million tons of Scope 3 carbon dioxide for 2022 in its sustainability data book, a reminder of how much of its climate footprint sits in the cars it sells rather than in its plants. A slower shift to battery cars keeps that tailpipe math in place for the life of each vehicle. The average EU car is already 12 years old.

Why Japanese Brands Fight Battery Rules Hardest

The four weakest 2030 electric mixes in the study are all Japanese: Suzuki at 10%, Honda at 24%, Toyota at 29% and Mazda at 30%. The three lowest lobbying grades are Japanese as well. Toyota, Suzuki and Mazda each received a D. Honda scored D+ and is not in that bottom band, even though its 24% mix is weaker than Toyota’s.

InfluenceMap found those firms have argued, in Australia, India and the United States, for rules that keep a longer role for combustion cars, including ordinary hybrids. The pattern is the point of the chart: automakers with thinner electric forecasts also ran the most negative climate lobbying, while the three companies already building enough electric cars for a 1.5C share ran the most positive comments.

BMW is the exception that keeps the link from becoming a law. It is forecast at 69% electric in 2030, above the 66% line, yet still scored D+ on lobbying. Mercedes-Benz, at 71%, only reached C-. Production leadership has not automatically produced supportive comments, which is why InfluenceMap said both German groups still have room to change how they talk to governments.

Nissan, at 39% and D+, is the least weak of the Japanese set on volume and still misses the 66% line by a wide margin. Battery-electric sales worldwide rose from 3% in 2020 to 11% in 2023, and combustion sales have fallen every year since they peaked in 2017. The Japanese forecasts treat that shift as slower, and more optional, than the IEA path does.

Trade Groups Do the Heavy Lifting

The report covers eight auto industry associations as well as the 15 companies. Every automaker except Tesla belongs to at least two of those groups, and most belong to at least five. InfluenceMap says the associations led the push to delay and weaken light-duty climate rules in Australia, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the US. In the United States, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation led opposition to tighter fuel-economy and greenhouse-gas standards.

Tesla’s B came with a 33% engagement intensity, well below Volkswagen’s 62% or Ford’s 51%. It supports zero-emission mandates and tight greenhouse-gas standards, and it is not sitting inside the same cluster of trade groups. That is a quieter form of alignment, not a louder one.

Toyota’s seats are not quiet. A May 2024 investor briefing counted memberships in 8 associations graded D or below and 11 graded between B- and D+. In December 2025 the company published its fifth review of those memberships and said it found no material misalignment.

WHERE TOYOTA SITS IN THE TRADE GROUPS

• JAMA: Toyota’s president is chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.
• FCAI: A Toyota executive is deputy chair of Australia’s Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.
• Europe and the US: Toyota is a board member of ACEA and of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation.
• The UK and Japan business lobby: It sits on the board of the SMMT and a Toyota executive is a board vice chair of Keidanren.

Those posts matter because the associations file the comments that companies can then treat as industry consensus. JAMA has pressed Tokyo not to impose a zero-emission vehicle mandate. FCAI ran the Australian efficiency fight. A company can endorse Paris in a sustainability report and still fund the room where the numbers get moved.

Australia’s Efficiency Standard Came Out Weaker

Australia is the cleanest case of that machine at work. InfluenceMap found that FCAI led a campaign to weaken a new fuel-efficiency standard, and that JAMA, Mazda, Mitsubishi and Toyota argued for softer carbon-dioxide targets, extra credits and delay. Toyota and Lexus told officials the chamber’s own industry code was a “logical baseline.” Mazda said that low-stringency voluntary code “could form a strong basis” for a mandatory rule.

FCAI opposed the government’s preferred NVES Option B as drafted, warning of price shocks and model exits. Tesla left the chamber on March 7, 2024, over claims about the cost of the standard. The New Vehicle Efficiency Standard still took effect on January 1, 2025, after the government recast parts of the package under industry pressure, including how some large SUVs are classed.

FCAI later said the industry met the 2025 targets as a group. Chief executive Tony Weber also said electric vehicles were 8.3% of new Australian sales in 2025, only 1.1 points above 2023, and that the 2029 passenger target is 59% lower than 2025. The chamber still wants demand-side policy, which is a different fight from the one it ran to soften the original rule.

Larger vehicles are the other pressure point in the global numbers. SUV and light-commercial share of light-duty production is forecast to rise from 57% in 2020 to 64% in 2030. Every automaker in the study except Tata Motors is set to make a higher combined share of those bigger vehicles. InfluenceMap found automakers still pushing rules that favour SUVs and light trucks over smaller cars, including in Australia, where SUVs already consume about 20% more oil than a medium non-SUV car.

Only Three Makers Hit the 2030 Climate Path

InfluenceMap measures the 2030 mix against the IEA’s updated 1.5C case, which says 66% of new light-duty sales must be electric by then if road transport is to fit a net-zero path by 2050. That electric total includes battery cars, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles. The net-zero pathway for light-duty vehicles is the benchmark the report uses, not a corporate slogan.

Transport is the third-largest source of greenhouse gases. Road-transport emissions rose 15% from 2010 to 2019, and cars and vans accounted for 10% of energy-related carbon dioxide in 2022. InfluenceMap’s reading of the February 2024 forecasts is that the industry as a whole still misses the 66% line by 13 points.

FORECAST ELECTRIC SHARE IN 2030

Ford, at 54% and a C, sits closest to the industry’s 53% average and still short of 66%. GM’s C comes with a 46% mix. Tata’s D sits on a 56% forecast, which is why the report treats lobbying and production as related, not identical. The companies building the fewest electric cars are also the ones working hardest to keep hybrids and engines in the rulebook, and Toyota is the clearest example of that overlap.

Akio Toyoda Has Not Changed the Story

The hybrid-first politics documented in Toyota’s climate lobbying record did not stop at the 2024 scorecard. InfluenceMap’s live Toyota climate policy engagement profile, last summarised in the third quarter of 2026, still assigns a D. The comments logged since the report read like a continuation, not a turn.

THE LINE AFTER THE SCORECARD

1. May 2022: InfluenceMap launches the Automotive Climate Tool and already ranks Toyota last among major automakers.
2. March 7, 2024: Tesla leaves Australia’s FCAI over the chamber’s claims on fuel-efficiency costs.
3. May 14, 2024: The 15-company update grades Toyota D, with a 29% electric mix forecast for 2030.
4. January 1, 2025: Australia’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard takes effect.
5. March 2025: Toyota endorses the US Transportation Freedom Act, a bill that would repeal federal light-duty greenhouse-gas and fuel-economy standards.
6. May 2025: Toyota signs a joint letter asking Ottawa to repeal mandatory electric-vehicle sales targets.
7. June 2026: Toyoda calls a shift to battery-electric cars his “biggest fear,” and Toyota argues for more EU flexibility, including plug-in hybrids and combustion cars on “renewable fuels.”

In January 2026 he said “the engine still has a role to play.” In February 2026 Toyota filed US comments seeking Corporate Average Fuel Economy levels below current new-vehicle averages. It has also argued to stretch the UK’s zero-emission mandate, to put full hybrids into the 2030-35 phase-out design, and to raise hydrogen-refuelling targets in the EU. The multi-path line is intact.

Extended-range models built in China now sit inside that same mix, another way to keep an engine in the car while the badge says electric. Battery-only volume can rise without the lobbying line having to move, which is why the 2024 grades still describe the company in 2026. Toyoda has not been forced to retire the 30% ceiling, because the factories have not retired it either.

The scorecard’s leftover fact is simple. Tesla, Mercedes-Benz and BMW are already building the 2030 mix the IEA path asks for. Toyota is building a different mix and then asking governments to grade that mix as climate policy. InfluenceMap’s D is the record of that request.