By Phil Royle — March 22, 2024

Toyota has long been known for clinging to internal combustion over EVs. It’s not surprising, especially considering that the company pretty much single handedly led the hybrid revolution. But when push came to shove, Toyota ran toward hydrogen fuel cells (and even internal combustion hydrogen) rather than embracing full BEVs. Because of this, it should be no surprise that in a recent – and super cool – marketing-driven anime series entitled GRIP: A Toyota Story, Toyota chose to highlight the GR Supra and GR Corolla. What was a surprise, though, is that right smack dab in the middle of the third episode of the series that celebrates many of the company’s past and present ICE performance cars, Toyota slyly drops in the FT-Se electric sports car concept – albeit undercover.

While we didn’t produce a story on the FT-Se when it was unveiled at the 2023 Tokyo auto show, other outlets did, despite there being a lack of technical info on the car.

The FT-Se is a two-door, two-seater, electric sports car that Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda said would sit alongside (not as a replacement for) the GR86 and Supra. Roughly zero tech specs were released at the car’s unveiling, although Top Gear did apparently manage to get an engineer to reveal that the car will house two motors and sprint to 60 mph in less than three seconds.

The Toyota FT-Se EV concept has a distinctive profile — one which very likely appeared in a Toyota-created anime celebrating ICE enthusiasm.

We also know that the FT-Se does not sport an internal combustion engine.

GRIP: A Toyota Story’s protagonist, Jae Kang, pilots his GR Corolla in a battle against Dr. Aron Synth and his fleet of soulless autonomous cars. Early in the journey, Jae meets Linh “Nitro” Lam, who races to Jae’s rescue in her GR Supra. In Episode 3, the series introduces Kumail Jo, and Jae briefly tours the GRIP garage. This is precisely where the FT-Se appears, albeit under cover.

Comments on YouTube have people pleading for the secret car to be hinting toward a resurgence of the MR-2, but based on the car’s silhouette, this is most definitely the FT-Se – an electric vehicle. If I’m correct, this would be a bold move for Toyota to introduce an electric vehicle in its incredibly well-done original anime series about the company’s ICE performance cars.

Each episode of the anime series is a minute in length, and the series barely has four episodes out as of this writing, so there’s no telling where Jae’s adventure will lead him. But if I’m right, this series is going to involve a high-performance electric vehicle that will exceed the acceleration performance of any ICE vehicle Toyota currently produces, and it very likely will be the vehicle that comes in clutch when Jae and the GRIP team need it most.

This is a huge step in the right direction for Toyota.

Watch Episode 1 of the series below, then click through to YouTube to catch them all.