Toyota FT-HS Hybrid Concept
January 19th, 2007
The Detroit auto show is held in a Las Vegas-like stage where carmakers do their best to amaze a world audience. Toyota will step up this year and show off its FT-HS Hybrid Sports Concept, a futuristic looking sports car that would be powered by a 400-horsepower hybrid powertrain. The Toyota FT-HS Hybrid Sports Concept is just that a concept, little more than a container for the overheated dreams of a bunch of designers at Calty Design Research. In fact, what you see here is only a two-dimensional animation, a computer-generated image of the show car that Toyota will be rolling out at the Detroit auto show.
Toyota To Double Hybrid Production
June 13th, 2006
In a wide-ranging announcement in Tokyo of programs to develop and market environmental technologies and environmentally-friendly vehicles, Toyota Motor Corporation pledged Tuesday to double the number of hybrid models in its product line in the next five years.
The company also said it is pushing ahead on the development of plug-in hybrids, and is currently working on a next-generation hybrid that is capable of a greater range of electric-only operation.
Toyota Prius Hybrid Sales Top 500,000
June 8th, 2006
Toyota Motor Co.’s energy-saving hybrid Prius car has surpassed the half-million mark in worldwide sales, the Japanese automaker’s US subsidiary said. More than half the sales of the world’s first mass-produced gas-electric hybrid vehicle — 266,212 — have been in the massive US market.
The Toyota Prius was launched in Japan in late 1997 and entered the US market in July 2000 as a niche market vehicle popular with environmentalists and Hollywood stars.
Sales picked up in the fall of 2003 with a second-generation model and grew to more than 107,000 units in 2005.