Toyota president Akio Toyoda has made it no secret that he actually, actually dislikes electrical automobiles. This weekend, he provided this newest installment:

Toyota’s president is questioning whether the push for the auto industry to phase out gas-powered vehicles and go exclusively electric is the right decision.

Akio Toyoda made the comments to reporters in Thailand after the auto manufacturer said around this time last year that it would produce 3.5 million electric vehicles annually by 2030, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"People involved in the auto industry are largely a silent majority," Toyoda said. "That silent majority is wondering whether EVs are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it’s the trend so they can’t speak out loudly."

Toyoda reportedly has been trying to express that point to governments and industry stakeholders.

"Because the right answer is still unclear, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to just one option," he added.

He might be right! It wouldn’t surprise me at all if a majority of executives in the automotive industry didn’t like electric vehicles. Finally, the old automotive industry with electric vehicles has died down. In cases where they had promising vehicles, they let them wither on the vine. In other cases, the vehicles that rolled off the assembly line were clearly the bare minimum required to comply with the law. They would probably prefer to continue making petrol and diesel vehicles, and when those are gone they would at least have an alternative to batteries, which have been a headache across the industry as supply chains face growing pains.