Toyota Prius: The Model T of Hybrids
July 11, 2007
Toyota’s top North American official reaffirmed the Japanese automaker’s 
commitment to hybrids and predicted hybrids will eventually dominate U.S. roads as fuel prices continue to rise.
"Eventually, everything will be a hybrid," said Jim Press, president of Toyota Motor North America, told Bloomberg News in an interview Tuesday.
Hybrids have a long way to go to dominate the roads, but Toyota certainly is dominating the hybrid market.
This year, hybrids have accounted for 2.3 percent of all cars and light trucks sold in the U.S., though in some months it hit 3 percent, according to Edmunds.com’s statistics. Edmunds’ forecasts hybrids will account for 10 percent of the all sales by 2015.
Currently a dozen hybrids are available to buyers; that number is expected to double in the next couple of years.
Press said Toyota has seen hybrid demand grow by 60 percent. Toyota sells three out of every five hybrids purchased in the U.S., most of them Prius models. “The Prius is the forerunner," Press said. "It's going to be like the Model T when you look back."
Toyota executives have said they expect at least 175,000 Prius hybrids to be sold in North America this year, up from about 109,000 in 2006.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:18 AM under Technology , Toyota | Comments (4) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
Let us face it, hybrids are heavy, aren't getting advertised MPG, and have batteries that eventually must be disposed of somehow. Diesels have proven that they can get significantly better mileage than gasoline engines and Toyota catalytic converter - http://www.catalyticonverters.com/toyota_catalytic_converter.html , have torque to make up for the horsepower deficit, and weigh less. Got it?
Posted by: Mr.Vent | July 11, 2007 at 9:06 PM
Mr. Spam??
It's thinking like that that has allowed Detroit's one-time dominance to slip. Meanwhile, Toyota has invested in a broad range of technologies and comes ready to compete in every market segment.
Posted by: Actualsize | July 13, 2007 at 12:01 PM
Mr. Spam??
It's thinking like that that has allowed Detroit's one-time dominance to slip. Meanwhile, Toyota has invested in a broad range of technologies and comes ready to compete in every market segment.
Posted by: Actualsize | July 13, 2007 at 12:02 PM
I researched it Toyota Prius gets 40 MPG accordign to the new estimates.
Toyota Lied
The Model T got 30 MPG.
So lets see 100 years later 10 MPG increase. Toyota is a far cry of quality, just a bunch of over paid advert people who dont know antything about engineering.
The real quality was back in the 1990's when GM made the first Plug in Car the EV1
Still more advanced than the Toyota Lie.
Posted by: Greg | July 27, 2007 at 10:52 AM