Toyota Australia intends to elevate hybrid growth

For Australia's top-selling brand, Toyota,  hybrid vehicles are the need of the hour. According to the firm, hybrids are suitable to reduce the CO2 footprint, it provides outstanding fuel economy, performs well, but above all it's affordable. 

By keeping these thoughts in mind, the firm is currently focussing on the reduction of CO2 emissions by popularising economical hybrid versions of their models, namely Corolla, Camry, RAV4, and Prius. The firm is aimed to demand the formulation of more stringent regulations on CO2 output from the government.

The firm targets a 20 percent share of its global sales for hybrid vehicles in the next year. And slated its plan of bringing electric vehicles somewhere between 2025 and 2030. The local arm of the brand sells around double units as compared to Mazda and Hyundai, its close competitors. 

If we look at the price gap between the hybrid and petrol versions of the model, we can find that hybrids are only $1500 dearer. Moreover, the battery electric vehicles are also priced near $50,000. The current demand is even higher than the firm’s expectations as the previous month sales of Corolla hatch and Camry constitutes 50 percent hybrid variants. In the case of RAV4, it lies around 40 percent because of limited supply.

In the list of hybrid models, the brand is set to add Corolla sedan and C-HR crossover by this year-end and Yaris by the mid-2020. The firm is also working on the supply part to boost the segment growth. As per Sean Hanley, vice-president of sales and marketing, Toyota, “Our plan is, by the end of 2020, to have 20 percent of the hybrid mix in our total sales. We expect to sell over 200,000 cars this year and we’d expect to do similar next year. By 2030 I’d expect it to be around 40 percent.”

Also read: 2020 Toyota C-HR GR Sport unveiled, unlikely to come soon in Australia