Nov 18, 2015 - 08:01 am

Carlos Gosn, Mary Barra, Yoshikazu Tanaka.

“I don’t think anybody envisions today a future without the electrification of cars.”

Still, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has no illusions about the profitability, or better the lack thereof, of electric cars. Compliance is the new reality before better times may come, Nissan believes.
autonews.com

“We’ll be able to put the Chevrolet Bolt in the marketplace next year. […] We wanted to put it in the marketplace as quickly as we could. Electrification as an option for the masses, not just at the top end.

It looks like GM CEO Mary Barra fully agrees with her counterpart at Nissan, as the American carmaker, too, works towards the electrification of the masses.
industryweek.com

“If Elon Musk says fuel cell technology is stupid, in a sense this is true: We are just at the beginning. It was just born and has huge potential.”

Toyota Mirai’s chief engineer Yoshikazu Tanaka is aware that fuel cell technology may indeed seem like an impractical option. Yet, the company decidedly creates facts as it plans to produce “30,000 FCV annually by 2020,” he said.
bloomberg.com

Oct 28, 2015 - 09:22 am

Jörg Hofmann, Bob Lutz, Yoshikazu Tanaka.

“It’s a real tragedy how auto manufacturers, suppliers and the government are shoving responsibility to and fro.”

Jörg Hofmann, head of IG-Metall (German Industrial Union of Metalworkers), adds his voice to a choir of German industrialists and politicians demanding local battery cell production. Yet, neither the public nor the private sector seems willing to make the first move in the face of strong Asian competition.
global.handelsblatt.com

“I like Elon Musk personally, and I think the Model S is a fabulous car, but history’s filled with defunct companies with great products run by brilliant people. Unless Tesla rights its organization and products in a hurry, it’ll join those ranks.”

Industry veteran Bob Lutz adopts the role of a caring yet worried elder as he advises Tesla to cut costs and consider to offer a hybrid. Lutz believes that otherwise “at some point they will not get any more money.”
roadandtrack.com

“At the point we believe the SUV would be very attractive as an FCV, we will do that.”

This was said by Toyota Mirai chief engineer Yoshikazu Tanaka ahead of the Tokyo Motor Show. A fuel cell SUV thus seems to be a question of when rather than if.
motoring.com.au

Apr 29, 2015 - 08:27 am

Henk Kamp, Yoshikazu Tanaka, Tetsuro Aikawa.

“If you consider that six years ago there were 600 and now there is already 50 thousand, it is going in the right direction.”

Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs, Henk Kamp, is determined to not only keep incentivising EVs but make rules even easier. The country aims to have 200,000 electric cars on its roads by 2020 and Kamp thinks this is reachable.
nltimes.nl

“Both in terms of design and manufacturing technology, we need to improve. We need to achieve a drastic technological evolution.”

Yoshikazu Tanaka, Mirai Chief Engineer, on Toyota’s substantial difficulties to increase production of its first FCV in line with demand. Waiting time is up to three years.
autonews.com, transportevolved.com

“In the future, we would like to launch such a vehicle with Evo characteristics. […] So we would like to launch this type of car, featuring EV and PHEV technology, which is the ultimate of its kind.”

Mitsubishi President Tetsuro Aikawa here dreams of an “ultimate car” based on the ASX. The high performance Evo would then be issued as a plug-in hybrid and EV but is so far just an idea.
autocar.co.uk

Apr 17, 2015 - 08:28 am

Yoshikazu Tanaka, Tim Mahoney.

“Toyota isn’t denying the benefits of EVs. But we think the best way to use them is to charge them at night (to avoid peak power consumption hours), and use them for short distances during the day.”

Yoshikazu Tanaka is Toyota’s chief engineer responsible for the Mirai, so he might be a bit biased on that matter or say overly protective of the grid.
reuters.com

“The decision is made. The name won’t be changed.”

Chevy will stick with the name Bolt for its new EV, Chevrolet’s head of marketing, Tim Mahoney, here confirms.
usatoday.com

Mar 12, 2014 - 09:39 am

Yoshikazu Tanaka, Ki-Sang Lee.

“In order to give (…) customers what they want within an appropriate timescale, we are committed to developing a broad range of technologies—including plug-in hybrid, electric vehicle and FCV, corresponding to the simultaneous diversification of energy sources.”

Yoshikazu Tanaka, Toyota head of fuel cell development, says that none of the alternative drives available to date are flawless. But in order to make them attractive to customers, different kinds of technologies fit for different situations are made available.
greencarcongress.com

“There is no clear direction about which eco-friendly cars will win. We are dividing the roles of Hyundai and Kia, with Hyundai launching fuel cell cars and Kia focusing on electric cars. But the time will come when Kia will introduce a fuel-cell car. Hyundai is also preparing to launch a (battery-powered) electric car in 2016.”

Ki-Sang Lee, senior vice-president of Hyundai Motors confirms that the South Korean carmaker plans on developing a fully-electric vehicle by 2016, while it had focused on FCVs until this point.
reuters.com

Mar 6, 2014 - 10:21 am

Carlos Tavares, Yoshikazu Tanaka, Jochen Goller.

“Electric mobility is not a priority.”

Peugeot’s new CEO Carlos Tavares wants to first help the carmaker out of the red. He says that EU emission goals could also be reached without developing new EVs.
autozeitung.de (in German)

“So, we can state that, in Europe today, only 77 stations and over 100 next year will allow a large European territory coverage, connecting for instance Norway to Switzerland via Sweden, Denmark and Germany. Even if it is not as convenient as today’s petrol station, some 200-300km between each station is a reasonable starting point.”

This is just one of the interesting answers from Yoshikazu Tanaka, head of the fuel cell vehicle development at Toyota, given to the many questions he had been asked around the automaker’s European debut of its FCV concept car at the Geneva Show.
transportevolved.com

“Once we see that an electric vehicle is profitable, we will already have access to that technology.”

VP of Sales Jochen Goller could not say exactly when an electric Mini will hit the roads. But he sees the potential, since the BWM Group already earned the necessary know-how with the i3.
handelsblatt.com (in German)