Toyota on Thursday launched what it called its most advanced hybrid vehicle yet as part of a drive to roll-out more eco-friendly cars that have helped it become the world’s top-selling automaker.
Toyota, which earlier this year overtook ailing United States giant General Motors in global sales, unveiled the latest hybrid model of the Lexus, its luxury brand that has enjoyed immense success in the key US market.
”Without protecting the environment, there is no future,” Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe said as he showed off the new sedan in Tokyo.
”Our top priority is sustainable mobility,” he said. ”We are aiming to make the system smaller and lighter so that hybrid systems can go into smaller cars.”
Toyota said its new Lexus is the world’s most advanced hybrid — which use less fuel by running partly on electricity — by bringing together a five litre V8 engine with full-time all-wheel drive.
Existing Lexus hybrids have 3,3 to 3,5 litre V6 engines.
Toyota said it has especially designed the four-wheel braking system to recover energy and lead to a more substantial reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions.
Toyota put the new Lexus LS600h and LS600hL on sale initially only in Japan, an unusual approach for the automaker which first launched the Lexus brand in the United States.
The new Lexus will go on sale in 37 countries or territories in Europe, North America and Asia starting next month. In Japan, it costs between ¥9,7-million and ¥15,1-million ($80 500 and $125 400) before tax.
Watanabe reiterated the company’s ambitions for higher sales both of hybrids and the Lexus.
”We aim to double the number of hybrid models by the early 2010s and want to sell one million vehicles annually,” he said, adding that the global sales target for the Lexus was 500 000 this year, up from 475 000 in 2006.
But the hybrid boom has shown signs of saturation in the United States, which has led growth as customers tire of gas-guzzlers in an age of high oil prices and wider eco-awareness.
US sales of Toyota’s pioneering hybrid Prius, which for years had sold out of stock in the United States without any advertising, fell 0,5% last year, although they bounced back in January.
Toyota has set an initial sales target of 7 000 of the new Lexus hybrid models globally in the six months after their launch, 4 000 of them in Japan. ‒ AFP