New Prius is now on the market!!!

Toyota started selling the third generation “Prius” at last. They improved combustion performance greatly but set the price at JPY2.05 million, JPY280,000 cheaper than the cheapest of the existing models. (To compete against Honda’s hybrid car “Incite” launched in February and to put priority in expanding the sales of the Prius, the company’s president Mr Toyoda, the voice of authority, decided to drop the price from originally around JPY2.4 million.) In 2009, it is expected that 1 in every 5 cars they produce in Japan would be the Prius and the car would be the new main force for the company like “Corolla”.

Toyota released the first Prius in 1997, the second generation model in 2003 and kept recording a surplus for a long time. For this third generation model, by cutting the production cost by 30%, they are betting the fate of the company on this car as the moneymaking vehicle.

The combustion performance is 38km per litre, which is the world best within mass-produced cars and the aerodynamic volume displacement is raised to 1.8 litre, but the prices are kept down to between JPY2.05 million and JPY3.27 million. In Japan, as a part of the government’s economic-stimulus package, hybrid cars owners can receive tax credits and if they want to purchase an hybrid car from a car used for 13 years and more from the first registration, they can get even bigger tax credits, in total up to JPY470,000.

Toyota has set the monthly domestic sales target as 10,000 cars but already has 80,000 orders, so it will be 5 months wait even if you put an order now. Honda’s “Incite”, launched in February, is also popular and about 2 months’ wait. Now car manufacturers in Japan are facing up to the new era that these environmentally-friendly vehicles will lead the production and sales of the companies.

Toyota is planning for sales of the Prius in 80 different areas in many countries, which is double the current area and plans to sell 30 to 40 million of them overseas in 2009. They want to put the “Hybrid Vehicle = Prius” image worldwide. Total production of the Prius will reach 50 to 60 million in 2009. Because Toyota’s total domestic production plan is around 270 million vehicles, the Prius would account for almost 20%; which would also be the largest in the country as a single vehicle.

While selling the third generation Prius, Toyota has also kept selling the second generation model at the same time. This is unusual keeping an old model on the market when car manufacturers launch a new model as a strategy. They are going to sell them to corporate customers after some improvement such as simplifying equipment, etc. Toyota has set the price of the cheapest model as JPY1.89 million, exactly the same price as the Incite. They are going to compete head-on against Honda. By the way, I read an article the other day that UK Toyota delivered 50 of the second generation Prius to the British army. Even the army cannot ignore the environmental rules and they have to reduce CO2 emission per car to 130g/km and under by 2011. They chose the second generation Prius because their CO2 emission is 104g/km, one of the best in the cars in the European market.

The domestic and international automotive markets are both experiencing sluggish sales because of the slow economy and personal spending after last year’s financial crisis but here is a hope: this new Prius might expand the world hybrid vehicle market!


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