Toyota's secret mission to stop Tesla and cheap Chinese brands: How sci-fi-sounding 'Area 35' plan will push the Japanese giant to the next level - and deliver you cheaper, better electric cars like the LandCruiser

Toyota has seemingly tapped into the world of science fiction in outlining its plan to take on Tesla and China in the race to deliver cheaper, better electric vehicles, with the brand’s “Area 35” plan to debut a new manufacturing process that will deliver some 3.5 million electric vehicles by 2030.

Toyota’s manufacturing processes were once the envy of the automotive industry, but Tesla’s more modern approach has been able to deliver vehicles faster, and more cheaply, than traditional car making systems.

Toyota is on the record as being keen to adopt at least some of Tesla’s processes — including gigacasting — but Area 35 will help shrink the gap. It is also designed to help the brand avoid the issues suffered by serval other automotive giants — investing too much, too quickly in EV production, leaving them exposed when demand wanes.

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Ford is one such company, with the brand set to cut its EV spend, while also cutting jobs and trimming its promised electric car rollout. Several other brands have wound back their EV-only promises and electric vehicle rollouts, too.

Toyota’s strategy, however, doesn’t involve building new and dedicated EV production facilities. Instead, the brand will leverage existing facilities, reduce complexity and maximise floorspace to keep the production costs of its incoming EV family down.

There are a lot of ‘3’s and ‘5’s, in this plan — hence its Area 51-aping name, which actually stands for Asset Reborn and Empower All Toyota — but the idea is to shrink the production space required for its existing ICE range by 35 per cent, freeing up space in its factories for new lines without having to build new buildings, or hire new staff.

Next, the auto giant said it will reduce the number of different parts in its vehicles by 35 per cent, again increasing speed and cost efficiency in the manufacturing process. Both these things, the company said, will also increase profits by 3.5 per cent (though that last number seems a little too convenient).

“We are working to optimise the number of types of specifications and parts,” Miyazaki said. “We are expanding the space for finished vehicle production and increasing development efficiency,” Toyota CEO Yoichi Miyazaki said in an an earnings call.

“This allows us to adapt more effectively to changes in actual demand and make last-minute investment decisions. We are preparing to smartly build a system that can flexibly accommodate our customers’ choices.”

The plan has already begun. In August last, Toyota began making Area 35 changes to 10 of its production facilities in Japan — a move that it said has already increased annual production by 80,000 vehicle. The strategy will now be deployed to more of it’d 54 global plants.

Toyota has been beset by order backlogs and long wait times in Australia, suggesting many of its existing facilities were operating at capacity. Add to this the brand’s plan to build as many as 3.5m EVs across Toyota and Lexus annually by 2030, and the existing infrastructure would clearly struggle.

In interesting news for the fans of Toyota’s ICE and hybrid range, the brand said it will also be reducing complexity among its existing model range to further streamline production, but the auto giant hasn't said which trims might be on the chopping block.