Originally published December 18 2005
Toyota works to bring the price of hybrid vehicles down
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
According to Asahi Shimbun, Toyota will begin selling hybrid vehicles with a less costly engine by 2008, in an effort to increase demand for the fuel-efficient vehicles.
Toyota Motor Corp, the world's second-biggest automaker, will mount a more fuel efficient and less costly hybrid engine on its vehicles from 2008, the Asahi Shimbun reported without citing sources.
Toyota now plans to double its production capacity for hybrid systems from the current 300,000 units a year to help halve the gap in cost between traditional gasoline and hybrid engines, the newspaper said.
It also plans to reduce the weight of the system, which it will use on most of its mid-size or larger vehicles to attract more customers, the daily said.
The company will also start producing key components of the system in the US.
The Japanese carmaker has scored a big success since it first launched a Prius hybrid car powered by a combination gasoline and electric engine in 1997.
The current systems used are a second generation launched in 2003.
'We have been pushing ahead with the development of a third-generation system but it has not been decided when it will be put in use,' a company spokeswoman said, adding that the year 2008 could be 'one possibility.'
Toyota has sold 491,900 hybrid vehicles worldwide since 1997, with January-September sales this year already reaching 173,400 against 134,700 for the whole of 2004.
Toyota is also to start its first overseas production of hybrid vehicles this year in China.
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