TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (MarketWatch) — Toyota Motor Co. plans to unveil a new Lexus hybrid and the next generation of its hot-selling Prius next year as the company looks to hit the one-million mark in hybrid sales in 2010.
A production version of the Lexus and Prius will be displayed at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January, said Bob Carter, group vice president and general manager for the Toyota division at Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. He made the comments during an interview on the sidelines of the Center for Automotive Research management Briefing seminar.
“You are going to love it,” Carter said, declining to release any more details until the auto show. “There were significant improvements in the first generation Prius to the second generation and you can expect the same in the third generation.”
The comments come as Carter said Toyota is gearing to hit the one-million sales mark for hybrids in 2010. He said more competitors entering the hybrid market are pushing sales along with gasoline prices which he expects to fall no lower than $3.50 a gallon.
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Hot off its success with its best-selling Prius sedan, Toyota Motor Co. announced Friday that it would make hybrid-engine systems available on all of its models by 2020.

The announcement came as all of the auto makers at an industry conference this week in northern Michigan maneuvered to carve out their own niches in fuel-efficient design, from expansion of the gasoline/electric hybrid technology already available in the Prius to the new plug-in hybrid vehicle known as the Volt under development by General Motor Corp.

Ford Motor Co., the Dearborn-Mich. auto maker with few of its vehicles with hybrid options, plans to double its hybrid-vehicle lineup and production next year. And Honda Motor Co. said this week at the Traverse City, Mich., conference that in 2009, it will import a new hybrid to compete directly against the new Prius in the U.S. market — and at a lower price.

The Chevrolet Volt is still scheduled to go on sale in 2010 and its chief designer Bob Boniface gave the Center for Automotive Research’s Management Briefings Seminars an early look at the most recent styling changes adopted create a sleeker front end and extend its range on battery power through better aerodynamics. The Volt will be able to go at least 40 miles on its lithium-ion battery, but the vehicle will also contain a small gas tank that would recharge the battery if necessary. Consumers would be able to recharge the vehicle at home using a conventional household outlet.

The entire auto industry in the U.S. has scrambled to meet shifting consumer demand toward small, fuel-efficient cars and away from trucks and sport-utility vehicles. Even though gasoline prices have recently retreated from this year’s high above $4 a gallon, most auto makers have said they consider the changes toward small cars to be more or less a permanent change in the overall mix of vehicles customers want and the companies intend to build.

Toyota and Ford, for example, have said they have not been able to build enough hybrid vehicles to meet rising consumer demand. Though most auto makers are assumed to lose money on hybrids, Toyota’s Bob Carter, head of North American sales, said in an interview this week that his company makes a profit on its Prius hybrids, which recently exceeding sales of 1 million units globally.

In another sign of the shifting market demand away from trucks, Toyota confirmed this week that the Japanese auto maker abandoned its plans to resume pick-up production at its plant in Indiana this fall. Originally, the company planned to restart production of its Tundra pick-up there in November after a suspension earlier this year. Production instead will only be revived at its Texas facility this fall and the plant in Princeton, Ind. will take on production of Toyota Sequoia and Highlander, which are both SUVs.

Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) — Toyota Motor Corp., battling a 15 percent decline in U.S. sales of large pickup trucks amid a steeper drop industrywide, says the market will remain “viable.”

“It’s still one of the most viable, largest segments in the industry,” Bob Carter, group vice president of Toyota’s U.S. sales unit, said in an interview. “We are confident in the long- term viability of the full-size pickup truck market.”

U.S. sales of the biggest pickups may fall to as low as 1.4 million this year and continue at that rate “well into 2009,” Carter said. “Even at 1.4 million, it’s large enough it simply can’t be ignored.” Automakers sold 2.15 million large pickups in the U.S. last year.

Toyota’s U.S. vehicle sales decreased 7.6 percent through July. Asia’s No. 1 automaker is consolidating production of its Tundra full-size pickup at its new San Antonio factory. An Indiana plant, which also produced the truck, will be converted to make Highlander sport-utility vehicles.

Carter was interviewed in Traverse City, Michigan, before a speech at an industry conference.

Toyota built the $1.28 billion Texas plant as it sought to expand its full-size pickup sales, a segment traditionally dominated by General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC.

Industrywide Decline

Industrywide sales of full-size pickups plummeted 25 percent in the first seven months of 2008, according to Autodata Corp. of Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. That decline, triggered by record gasoline prices, prompted Ford to delay introduction of a redesigned F-150 by two months.

“What is coming off the market is the fashion buyer, the people who buy it for that once-in-a-while trip to Home Depot,” said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts. Sales are now limited to “people who really need them,” she said.

Ford has idled F-150 plants in Missouri and Michigan for most of the third quarter while the company sells off 2008 model- year trucks. The Missouri factory, near Kansas City, is scheduled to start producing the redesigned F-150 this month. The Michigan plant, in Dearborn, near Ford headquarters, will be shut through late September.

Ford has projected declining sales and profits from large pickups, Executive Vice President Mark Fields said two days ago in Traverse City, without providing specific numbers.

Ford is trying to lessen its dependence on large pickups and sport-utility vehicles, the main source of its profits in the 1990s. Starting in 2010, the automaker will bring to the U.S. small cars based on models it sells in Europe.

Chrysler also is introducing a redesigned version of its large pickup, the Ram, next month. The No. 3 U.S. automaker opted not to postpone that introduction.

“We like the fact that Ford delayed it,” Tom LaSorda, a Chrysler president, said yesterday in Traverse City, referring to Ford’s F-150.