Two Toyota Electric Crossovers Revealed By Chinese Patent Images

Chinese website believes they refer to compact and mid-size vehicles.

Hybrid cars were the way Toyota found to make EV adoption gradual. That would allow the company to slowly phase out investments in combustion engines and develop the supplier network. Tesla’s success forced the Japanese titan to review the plans and the picture above shows it is moving fast. It is a patent image from Chinese patent offices and it reveals one of the first Toyota electric crossovers.

Autohome found images of two of these crossovers and it refers to them as a compact and as a mid-size crossover. We are not sure if the Chinese measures for these cars are similar to the way the American market refers to them. In most countries, “compact vehicle” is a reference to B-segment automobiles and mid-size to the C-segment cars. In the US, C-segment machines are regarded as compact.

Regardless, the biggest of these two electric crossovers looks like a seven-seater, perhaps even bigger than the Audi e-tron or the Tesla Model X. The smallest one looks like a Model Y competitor and reminds us very much of the BMW i3 styling.