Toyota Launches All-out Sales Offensive for Hybrids

Japan Information Network - February 8, 2006: Having launched the Prius way back in 1997, Toyota Motor Corp. is girding for an all-out global sales offensive for hybrid cars. The company sold 200,000 hybrids around the world in 2005, and aims to raise that figure to 1 million by 2008.

Against a background of sharply rising oil prices, these energy-saving vehicles are rapidly gaining popularity worldwide. They have also shown remarkable improvements in performance. The catch has been cost. Now Toyota intends to bring the price of hybrids in line with that of ordinary cars by drastically pruning parts costs, prior to launching the sales offensive. Fuel cells were once viewed as the killer technology for energy-saving cars, but development schedules seem likely to be delayed considerably. Hybrid cars came to be seen as a stopgap, and Toyota, which pioneered hybrid production, still cannot keep up with demand for them. What pushes up their price tags, and curbs their mass appeal, is per-unit motor, battery and parts manufacturing costs that run from 350,000 yen to 400,000 yen in total. By hacking these expenses by two-thirds down to around 80,000 yen over the next three years, so that a finished hybrid costs little more than an ordinary car, Toyota expects to create an overnight mass market.

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