TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) sees an opportunity to increase sales through vehicle leasing as U.S. automakers pull back, Toyota U.S. sales chief said on Wednesday.

Bob Carter, group vice president of Toyota Motor U.S.A. Sales, said the automaker is committed to leasing in the U.S. market because record high residual values for its fuel-efficient cars and hybrids are offsetting falling values of large trucks and SUVs.

Toyota aims to maintain leasing at 15 to 18 percent of its U.S. sales, Carter told Reuters in an interview.

“That is a very good level for us,” Carter said.

Carter said he expected the U.S. auto market to start a mild recovery in the fourth quarter and could come back close to the 16 million unit sale level in 2010.

(Reporting by Soyoung Kim; Editing by Gary Hill)

A top Honda Motor Co. executive said Wednesday the company’s gas-electric hybrid that will compete directly with Toyota’s Prius will be priced lower than the current Civic hybrid.

Richard Colliver, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., told an industry seminar in Traverse City that the new five-door, five-passenger hybrid will be launched next spring.

“We’re targeting sales of 100,000 units of this new vehicle in North America,” he said in a speech at the Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars.

The Civic hybrid starts at $22,600, while the Prius has a base price of $21,500.

Colliver said Honda wants to make the hybrid affordable to a new generation of buyers.
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Honda, which already has the most fuel-efficient lineup in the U.S., announced in May that it will sell the new hybrid-only Prius competitor in the U.S., Japan and Europe starting in early 2009. It also announced that it will build a new hybrid version of its Fit subcompact.

Toyota sold more than 181,000 Priuses last year, and so far this year it has sold more than 106,000. The Prius gets an estimated 45 miles per gallon (19 kilometers per liter) on the highway and 48 miles per gallon (20 kilometers per liter) in the city.