Toyota recalls its first electric car amid fears the wheels could fall off
Toyota has been forced to recall 2,700 of its first electric vehicles because of concerns the wheels could fall off, in a blow to the world’s largest carmaker’s belated attempt to launch a battery-only car.
The global recall affects the Japanese manufacturer’s bZ4X sports utility vehicle, its first effort at a pure battery electric vehicle (EV), after the manufacturer found an issue with the bolts that connect the wheels to the chassis. It is investigating whether the components need to be replaced.
“Until the remedy is available, no one should drive these vehicles,” the company said in a statement.
Toyota has been the world’s largest carmaker by sales for the last two years, ahead of Volkswagen. However, unlike its German rival it has not embraced all-electric technology to the same extent, aiming instead to keep producing orthodox fossil fuel vehicles as well as hybrid electric vehicles that combine a battery with an internal combustion engine.
The company argues that more customers will be able to buy hybrid vehicles until the network of electric chargers improves, while still delivering cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. EVs, and possibly some driven by hydrogen fuel cells, will then deliver it to “beyond zero”, hence the “bz” in its first electric car’s name. However, Toyota faces pressure to provide models for markets such as the UK which will ban all new internal combustion engines after 2035, despite lobbying by Toyota and others.
Its different strategy makes it a conspicuous outlier among the large carmakers, who were spurred into investing in electric car production by the dieselgate scandal and Tesla, the US carmaker run by Elon Musk which pioneered building battery cars at scale.
Toyota said in December it would
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