Toyota does not want to sell a lot of EVs, because that could mean investing heavily to scale up the manufacturing of a dead-end technology that ends up losing out. Meanwhile they've been iterating on their hybrid tech and are selling 50 MPG vehicles by the millions. When the dust settles, a lot of EV companies will be out of business and their products will be e-waste with 0 spares anywhere. Toyota on the other hand generally uses the same technology for decades to build very predictable appliance-like vehicles. This is why a 3 year old EVs have 40% residuals while used Toyotas are 60%.
Toyota has invested very heavily in hydrogen cars, which is an actual "dead-end technology that ends up losing out".
Sure, numerous EV startups will bite the dust, but the actual tech of putting a battery on wheels and spinning the wheels with motors isn't going anywhere.
Toyota invested heavily into the R&D which is distinct from tooling up to produce 70kwh battery packs by the millions. They've sold maybe 20k hydrogen cars, globally over the course of a decade as a pilot. They also sold 4k RAV4 EVs, are working on EVs with BYD and CATL, which means that they're keeping their finger on the pulse of the industry while also staying out of the lithium/neodymium pissing contest which they simply cannot win. The reason Chinese EVs are such a good deal is because all of the hard-to-source stuff is under the same roof because China doesn't really have a fossil fuel story. Their hope with EVs is that the current approach to making them is simply not sustainable on a global scale and that the emergence of less resource-intensive technologies will saddle all earlier entrants (that aren't subsidized by nations) with debt.
