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Toyota
Toyota Raises Prices For Toyota, Lexus Hybrids
By Danny King November 30, 2011Toyota raised prices on one Toyota hybrid model and two Lexus hybrids for the 2012 model year. The largest maker of U.S. hybrids hiked the price on the Toyota Highlander Hybrid by $400, and by $500 each for the Lexus CT 200h Premium hatchback and Lexus LS 600h L luxury sedan, the company said in a statement this week. The new prices mark an 1.1 percent increase to $38,540 for the base Highlander Hybrid, a 1.6 percent increase to $31,750 for the CT 200h Premium and a 0.5% hike to $112,750 for the LS 600h. The price on the more
Toyota Hybrid, Fuel Cell And Electric Cars To Debut
By Scott Doggett November 17, 2011Toyota's small Prius C hybrid will make its world debut in two weeks at the Tokyo Auto Show, where the Japanese automaker will also unveil a concept fuel cell sedan, the FCV-R, as well as the third generation of its subcompact Scion IQ-based all-electric city car concept, the FT-EV III, Toyota said in a statement Tuesday. Toyota will unveil the North American version of the Prius C at the Detroit Auto Show in January. The C, which will go on sale in the United States this spring, will join an expanding Prius family that will include the standard Prius more
Toyota Profit Plummets 72 Percent
By Bill Visnic November 8, 2011Natural disasters and a muscular yen are taking their toll on Toyota Motor Corp.’s bottom line: the company reported today that net income for the first half of its 2012 fiscal year plunged 71.8 percent to slightly more than $1 billion, compared with income of about $3.6 billion in the first half last year. With worldwide production only recently recovered from last March’s enormous earthquake in Japan, Toyota global vehicle sales in the first half were down by 689,000 units to 3,026,000, compared with 3,715,000 for the same period last year. The company posted an operating loss of 32.6 more
Scion Sees Challenges, Opportunity With New iQ
By Bill Visnic October 20, 2011Jack Hollis, vice president of Toyota Motor Sales USA’s Scion small-car division, isn’t deluding himself about the challenges Scion faces in launching the all-new iQ minicar in the United States. Despite the low buy-in price (the one-specification iQ comes delivered for $15,995) almost 19 percent of Scion’s target young customers are unemployed, twice the national average. Then there's the microcar market itself: there basically isn’t one. The optimistic end of Scion’s projected sales range is 2,000 units per month. Hollis remains unfazed. more
For Awhile, Luxury Market Will Be All About Lexus
By Dale Buss October 11, 2011BMW and Mercedes-Benz are slugging it out for highest-volume U.S. luxury car sales for the year, and stock-market swings and economic doldrums remain vexing problems for upscale sales. But the fourth quarter is going to be all about Lexus: what the Toyota luxury brand now can do – and still not do. Lexus executives say the brand is finally back to full strength and ready to fight its way up to No. 1 in the segment again, and their robust fourth-quarter production and marketing schedules reflect that conviction. more
2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Betting On HOV Access
By Scott Doggett September 19, 2011Toyota is counting on access to high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to drive initial U.S. sales of the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in, its first-ever plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle (PHEV). Toyota's first-year sales estimate for the Prius Plug-in, which arrives in spring and will be distributed in only 14 states initially, is a seemingly conservative 15,000 units, Toyota Division Group Vice President and General Manager Bob Carter said at last week’s introduction of the car. By contrast, Toyota sells about that many standard-issue Prius liftback models in America in a single month. more
Lexus Touts HS 250h Features After Price Boost
By Danny King September 12, 2011Lexus raised the price of its HS 250h hybrid sedan (above) and continues to pitch the car's luxury features after parent Toyota unveiled a new Camry Hybrid that offers better fuel economy for about two-thirds of the price. Lexus increased the MSRP price for both the base and premium HS 250h by $700 to $37,030 and $39,800, respectively, for the 2012 model year. The price hikes came just a few days after Toyota announced that the 2012 Camry Hybrid would be available in the U.S. starting next month. more
2012 Toyota Camry Launch No Big Deal In Japan
By Peter Nunn September 8, 2011The redesigned 2012 Toyota Camry, one of the major new-vehicle launches in the U.S. this year, quietly was launched this week in Tokyo. These days, though, the Camry is very much an America-oriented model – so its arrival here is a stark reminder of how the global business has changed for Japan’s auto players. Almost unbelievably, for the Japanese market there now will be just one Camry model, the 2.5-liter 4-cylinder Camry Hybrid – and Toyota’s sales ambitions are decidedly modest. Just 500 sales per month are expected, a vast contrast from the 400,000-plus annual sales the Camry customarily more
Toyota To End Camry Exports To U.S. From Japan
By Scott Doggett September 8, 2011Toyota, which manufacturers two-thirds of the vehicles it sells in the U.S. in the U.S., will soon be making all of the Camrys it sells in the U.S. in the U.S. Company spokesman Greg Thome told AutoObserver Wednesday that Japanese production of the popular model for export to America will end this month. Manufacture of all of the gasoline-powered 2012 Camrys sold in America began last month and production of the U.S.-market 2012 hybrid variant will commence next month, he said. All of the new, redesigned Camry hybrids for U.S. sale as well as some of the conventionally powered more