Australia's most popular car maker is trailing the pack when it comes to climate credentials, according to a report that ranks the world's top vehicle manufacturers.
Toyota scored lowest overall for the second year running in Greenpeace's annual Automotive Environment Guide for 2022, followed by Honda and Nissan, which both slipped three places from last year's report.
The rankings are based on the manufacturers' progress towards decarbonising their supply chains, phasing out internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, and resource reduction and efficiency.
In 2021, sales of electric vehicles more than doubled to over 5 per cent of the global market. However, that increase wasn't evenly distributed across all car manufacturers, according to today's report.
In the category of transitioning to "zero-emissions vehicles", companies were ranked based on the proportion of their overall sales that were fully electric or hydrogen-fuel-cell powered.
Toyota, whose Hilux model is consistently Australia's highest selling car, sold the lowest number of fully electric vehicles as a proportion of their overall sales, out of the top 10 largest car companies globally.
"In 2021, 499 out of every 500 vehicles that Toyota sold were powered by fossil fuels," the report said.
Although Toyota sells a significant number of hybrid vehicles, those cars combine an electric engine with an internal combustion engine and therefore still produce emissions, said Violette Snow, a Greenpeace Australia Pacific campaigner.
"Zero emissions vehicles were 0.2 per cent of Toyota's sales in 2021," Ms Snow said.
At the other end of the scale, electric vehicles made up more than 3 per cent of total sales for General Motors, Mercedes, Renault, Volkswagen, and Hyundai. More than 8 per cent of vehicles sold by General Motors (GM) were fully electric, according to Greenpeace.
A large majority of GM's electric vehicles were sold in China, the report said.
Mercedes climbed five places from last year to second in the rankings, but even the best climate-performing manufacturers are still falling short of international climate targets, Ms Snow said.
"Up the top are General Motors and Mercedes Benz, but both companies are still continuing to sell fossil fuel vehicles at a rate that exceeds the Paris Agreement goals," she said.
Emissions standards needed to drive Australian uptake
As well as having the lowest proportion of electric vehicle sales, Toyota scored equal-last on supply chain decarbonisation, alongside Honda.
The Greenpeace report was also critical of what it described as Toyota's "anti-climate lobbying".
Ms Snow said the company was "championing outdated solutions" to climate change, and that by backing hybrid technology, the manufacturer could end up prolonging the life of fossil-fuel-dependent vehicles.
Several automotive publications have reported that Toyota is threatening to pull its manufacturing from the UK if a ban on hybrid vehicles by 2030 is introduced.
"Internationally, Toyota has been ranked the third-most influential lobbying group against climate action behind fossil fuel giants ExxonMobil and Chevron," Ms Snow said.
That ranking is based on a report compiled last year by think tank InfluenceMap on the "prolific and highly sophisticated" lobbying efforts by the fossil fuel industry and others.
"Toyota Motor has campaigned against proposed regulations globally to phase out internal combustion engines in favour of electric vehicles in 2020-21 and ranks 3rd on InfluenceMap's list of global companies most negatively influencing Paris-aligned climate policy," the 2021 report said.
Jake Whitehead, the head of policy for the Electric Vehicle Council, said he couldn't comment on specific manufacturers, but Europe and the UK encountered industry resistance from a number of car makers when they implemented vehicle emissions and fuel efficiency standards.
He added Australia was "quite behind the eight-ball" when it came to vehicle emissions standards.
"We're one of the last OECD countries to not have one of these [fuel efficiency] schemes," Dr Whitehead said.
"Our international partners, 5-10 years ago were going through these processes [and] they encountered some pretty heavy pushback from some manufactures, and also some misinformation being put out."
He said there needed to be vigilance to ensure the same thing didn't derail efforts to decarbonise Australia's transport systems.
"I would hope we can have a mature, evidence-based debate about what it takes to get to net zero."
Documents obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald last month appeared to show the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) — a peak automotive body in Australia — tried to influence proposed increases to Australia's emissions standards.
The documents outlined a plan to position the FCAI as a "thought leader and trusted voice on reducing emissions".
They also showed the FCAI was pushing to have the existing, voluntary emissions standard of 98 grams of CO2 per kilometre introduced as the national standard, instead of stricter regulations that would bring us into line with Europe.
Economics professor John Quiggin from the University of Queensland said Australia had "a lot of catching up to do" to bring its policies in line with other developed countries.
"All other developed countries have had fuel efficiency standards in place for many years," Professor Quiggin said.
"Most have announced or foreshadowed an end to the sale of petrol-driven vehicles by 2035 or 2040."
Dr Whitehead said introducing ambitious fuel efficiency standards would help increase the supply of EVs to the country.
The United Kingdom has around three times the range of electric vehicle models compared to what's available in Australia.
"The key difference between the UK and us is [our] lack of an ambitious fuel efficiency standard," Dr Whitehead said.
"You've got around 500 models around the world, and less than 50 are making it into our market."
In response to questions from the ABC, a spokesperson for Toyota said the company would support an "Australian standard for new vehicle CO2 tailpipe emissions that works to support the achievement of the Paris Agreement goals".
The spokesperson did not specify what that emissions standard would be.
"Carbon is the enemy, and as the largest supplier of hybrid vehicles in Australia with more than 290,000 sold since 2001, Toyota Australia has made a significant contribution to reducing vehicle tailpipe carbon emissions in this country," the spokesperson said.
"In December 2021, it was announced that by 2030, Toyota is targeting global sales of 3.5 million [battery-electric vehicles] a year, with plans to launch 30 BEV models.
"Locally, we will introduce our first dedicated BEV … during 2023."
