www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0509/15/C07-315611.htm
Next Story Thursday, September 15, 2005 Image Toyota Toyota is aiming to produce as many as 400,000 gasoline-electric vehicles in 2006, including the Highlander hybrid. Frankfurt Auto Show Notebook Toyota sees 100% hybrid vehicle lineup Record fuel prices will shrink demand for its conventional cars, automak er contends.
said all its vehicles will ev entually be run by hybrid gasoline-electric motors, as record fuel pric es curb demand for conventional automobiles. "In the future, the cars you see from Toyota will be 100 percent hybrid, " Executive Vice President Kazuo Okamoto told reporters, without giving a time frame. Japan's biggest carmaker is aiming to make as many as 400,000 gasoline-e lectric vehicles in 2006, including Prius cars, Camry sedans, Highlande r sport-utility vehicles and Coaster buses.
Watanabe said he aims to cut production cost s and halve the $5,000 price premium on such vehicles, without giving d etails. "Toyota has been the leader of the pack in environmental technology and they will probably continue to be," said Norihito Kanai, an analyst at Meiji Dresdner Asset Management Co. "Many of its rivals were at first not so aggressive in hybrids, but now we see everyone joining. " Hybrid vehicles combine a gasoline engine with a battery pack that's rec harged through braking. Electricity powers the vehicle at low speeds, e nabling the Prius to go up to 55 miles on a gallon of gas, double the m ileage of an automobile with a conventional engine. Mazda plans to sell more cars in Russia Japanese automaker Mazda Motor Corp. is targeting the Russian market for more sales, citing growing demand there for its sedans and compacts. "Demand is exceeding our capacity," Daniel Morris, Mazda's senior managi ng executive officer, told Dow Jones Newswires at the Frankfurt auto sh ow. He didn't say whether the company would increase production in the count ry. Another Mazda executive, Masahiro Moro, vice president of the selec ted markets and retail management division, said the company would like ly sell as many as 20,000 cars in Russia in the current fiscal year. New car registrations jump 75% in Europe The number of new car registrations in Europe rose by 75 percent during August from the same time last year, industry group ACEA said Wednesda y In August, new car registrations in the European Union excluding Malta, Cyprus, and the European Free Trade Area countries of Iceland, Norway a nd Switzerland, rose to 894,226 from 831,680 in August 2004. As a resul t of the strong performance in August, cumulative figures for the first eight months of the year showed a decline of just 05 percent.
|