Toyota has revealed it is ramping up plans for a range of electric cars, and plans to reveal an electric car with solid state batteries before the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

It’s no secret that Toyota has been unimpressed with the rush to deliver electric cars, and has instead concentrated on developing its hybrid cars with, it has to be said, a great deal of success.

But despite being dismissive of electric cars publicly, we reported as far back as 2011 that Toyota were working on solid state batteries with plans to deliver a commercial product with a 600 mile range and for a much lower cost than current lithium ion batteries.

Toyota’s public stance on EVs changed somewhat in 2016 when they announced, having dropped plans for EVs in 2012, that they would now work to deliver a range of EVs starting in 2020.

Now we learn that not only will Toyota start to reveal electric cars in 2020, but that they plan to deliver and EV with solid state batteries ahead of the Tokyo Olympics next year, and are accelerating their plans to deliver a whole range of EVs.

In fact, Toyota now expect to be selling five million electrified vehicles a year by 2025 – including hybrids, plug-in hybrids, FCEVs and EVs – and up to a million of those are expected to be BEVs with solid state batteries.

If this statement of intent to deliver a solid state battery EV next year is right – and Toyota aren’t prone to exaggeration – it will be a huge game changer for EVs.