Sales of Toyota hybrid cars rise above one million

Mar 16 2009 by John Cranage, Birmingham Post

US sales of Toyota’s hybrid cars have surpassed the one million mark, the Japanese carmaker said, highlighting the rising popularity of ecological vehicles.

It took seven years for Toyota, the world’s biggest carmaker, to sell 500,000 hybrids in the US, but has taken just two years to sell the next 500,000.

But Toyota’s US sales overall have been battered by the industry recession, tumbling 39.8 per cent from a year earlier in February.

The company delivered a blow to the UK car industry last week when it announced cuts in production and pay at its two UK factories minutes before the Government held a special summit to discuss the automotive crisis.

US sales of Toyota’s Prius hybrid were down 33.6 per cent on year in February.

Toyota is introducing the third-generation Prius later this year, but that is expected to meet intense competition from the Insight hybrid from Japanese rival Honda. The Insight starts at £14,300 in the US, where it will go on sale on March 24, as the cheapest hybrid on the commercial market.

Since going on sale about a month ago in Japan for £13,700, Honda has racked up 18,000 orders for the Insight, more than triple the 5,000 that Honda targeted. Toyota has not disclosed prices for the upcoming Prius.

Toyota, which also makes the Camry and Corolla saloons, introduced petrol-electric hybrids to Japan in 1997, and the US in July 2000, with its Prius, which is still the world’s top-selling hybrid.

“One million hybrids in less than nine years indicates how quickly American consumers have accepted this important technology,” said Jim Lentz, Toyota’s top US executive.

Toyota controlled nearly 75 per cent of the US hybrid market over the past decade. It has sold 700,000 Prius cars in the US, more than half the 1.2 million sold worldwide.