Toyota has confirmed a radical acceleration in its electric vehicle strategy.

The Japanese automotive giant has drastically increased the numbers within its near term electric vehicle policy. Toyota has announced that it plans to have a comprehensive product portfolio of pure battery-powered vehicles on sale much sooner than previously expected.

Although Toyota has maintained a strong presence in the hybrid vehicle market, with its commitment to Prius – the company has been cautious with regard to pure electric vehicles.

An engineering joint-venture with Subaru, to pursue the development of batteries and electric vehicle platform technology for crossovers, is sure to change all of this. Suzuki and Daihatsu have been courted too, for a similar partnership relating to compact city cars.

JLR and BMW have also joined forces to develop electric cars

Toyota says the first of its ten new battery-powered vehicles, will be launched in 2020. The ambition is to total 5.5 million electrified vehicle sales by 2025 – essentially half of Toyota’s current global volumes.

These numbers are much more ambitious than Toyota originally planned for. The 5.5 m sales target was datelined for 2030, but that has now been brought forward by five years, to 2025. It must be noted that Toyota is including hybrids in its classification of ‘electrified’ vehicles.

We've driven the new Prius: read a review here

Unpack the numbers, according to Toyota’s own accounting, and only 1million of its projected 5.5 m electrified units will be pure electric by 2025, with the balance of 4.5 m other vehicles being hybrids.

Which batteries will be powering this future fleet of Toyotas? Synergising with its sponsorship of the Japanese Olympic Games, Toyota says it will reveal next-generation solid-state battery technology during the third quarter of this year. The expectation is that thesenew solid-state battery driven Toyotas will act as fleet vehicles at the Japanese Olympic Games.