• by Tanya Gazdik , Yesterday

Toyota Motor North America is adding to its EV family with three compact SUVs and an upcoming three-row Highlander EV, unveiled last week in California. 

A personality can be created for each member of the electric family, which now includes bZ, bZ Woodland and C-HR, says Owen Peacock, general manager, Toyota marketing and communications.

“Part of that is driven by the target customer,” Peacock tells Marketing Daily. “C-HR can be more of that sporty, youthful, stylish execution. Woodland can be a bit more of that adventure minded person. And then you got BZ, which can be just a great all around her, so to speak, and that's how we'll come out of the gate with the campaign that will launch later on in the spring.”

The three-row Highlander EV will go on sale late this year or early next year. 

“Now you've got an opportunity to say, ‘hey, now there's, there's the fourth. and here's that personality,’” he says. “We will be looking at larger families, people that need to need a true three row. And so it's just going to be really fun to create those distinct personas, so to speak, for each vehicle.”

The campaign will lead with creative that focuses on the “all-new, all-electric Toyota family.”

“But then we will be doing separate offshoots for each of them, probably more in the social and digital space, versus  linear video,” Peacock says. “ ut that's how we'll go to market to get all these out at once. Each one will probably have a little bit different nuance.”

Peacock isn’t worried about the vehicles stealing customers from each other. 

“I think because the ability for us to separate the personalities and the usage of these vehicles, people are going to pretty much kind of pick the lane they want to be in,” he says.

In terms of distinguishing these vehicles from other EVs, the focus will be on leaning into Toyota’s strong reputation for quality, dependability and reliability.

“So for us, we can have the benefit of leading with the brand,” Peacock says. “The other piece too, is, when you drive these,  they drive like a Toyota. We didn't sacrifice anything to just make them an EV. There was always this approach of, let's make sure this thing represents what Toyota is all about. So for us, we feel like that's going to be part of what we're able to offer from a competitive edge or just even a value prop to the consumer.”

While Toyota has taken the “something for everyone” approach, offering a range of propulsion systems, this will be a huge expansion into the pure battery electric vehicle space. 

“For our loyal Toyota owners out there, they've been waiting for this for a while, and now we can come with three out of the gate,” Peacock says. “We think that we'll really be making some smiles happen for those who want an EV.”