Top Toyota Scientist Says World Lacks the Resources to Go All-EV

Toyota Motor Corp.’s top scientist warned that transitioning to electric vehicles too quickly could lead drivers to hold on to old gas guzzlers and called for hybrids to be given a longer leash ahead of a Group of Seven leaders summit in Japan.

Subsidies and restrictions targeting combustion cars will make EVs attractive for customers who can afford them, but gas-electric vehicles remain a better fit for other consumers, Gill Pratt, Toyota’s chief scientist and chief executive officer of the Toyota Research Institute, told reporters in Hiroshima on Thursday.

Gill Pratt speaks in Hiroshima on May 18.

Photographer: Buddhika Weerasinghe/Bloomberg

It’s an oft-repeated argument from the world’s ...