I See Millions Of Hybrids In Toyota's Future

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Toyota launched their hybrid Prius in late 1997. 13 years later, Toyota has sold a total of about 2.6m hybrids, says The Nikkei [sub]. That mostly because it is the top selling car in Japan. And also “thanks to government subsidies that favor hybrids over other fuel-efficient cars,” as Automotive News [sub] remarks. Toyota doesn’t want to rest on its laurels.

Toyota told the Nikkei today that they want to achieve in less than 5 years what took them 13 years: Sell another 2.4m hybrids, for total accumulated hybrid sales of 5 million vehicles worldwide by the end of fiscal 2015.

That’s what it says in Toyota’s ‘Environmental Action Plan’, which outlines the steps it intends to take until March 2016, to supposedly “lessen the environmental impact of its business.” It is purely coincidental that 2016, a government mandated fuel efficiency of 35.5 miles per gallon will be in effect in the U.S.A.

Toyota wants to sell at least a million hybrid vehicles a year in the early part of this decade. In the 2020s, there should be a hybrid option across the whole Toyota lineup.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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 6 comments
  • Radimus Radimus on Aug 25, 2010

    Hybrids may be the only option when it comes time for cars to meet the new CAFE standards.

  • Thalter Thalter on Aug 25, 2010

    It will be easy once gas goes back above $4/gallon.

  • L'avventura L'avventura on Aug 25, 2010

    The main reason may be that hybrids are becoming cheaper to make. The fact that companies are heavily investing in PHEVs and EVs means that Toyota can produce the relatively smaller hybrid batteries for cheaper, and in the process shift to li-ion batteries that are smaller and lighter. EVs economies of scale start benefiting hybrids. More over, Toyota Tsusho has been investing heavily overseas mining explorations. They are developing li-ion mines in South America and rare-earth metal mines in Canda (particularly crucial since rare-earth metal magnets are currently monopolized by China). Then there is the fact that arch-rival Honda is going to be making the Civic hybrid-only, and the Fit is expected to get a hybrid option as well. Toyota is also going to release a mini-Prius that should be cheaper and get better mileage then a Prius (likely a huge seller in Japan), not to mention hybrid versions of the Yaris/Vitz and Crown. Considering that those vehicles are hybrids on mass-market products, they should easily move 2.4 million in the next 5 years.

  • Lowell Houghton Lowell Houghton on Feb 13, 2011

    Yeah, Honda is also doing a gas version of the CR-Z. Hybrids are still a small part of the business. The Leaf has had a lot of canceled orders by people who did not figure out sooner that they need to get a 220 lead to their cars to charge them overnight. I don't think electric will really take off until hydrogen fuel cells take off, which may happen soon after gas hits $5 a gallon, but most of the current "green" cars I don't think will be very popular after that.

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