Toyota’s Lexus May Add More Powerful Hybrids
Toyota Motor Corp’s Lexus, the top-selling luxury brand in the U.S., is planning to build more high-performance gas-electric hybrid models to reach newer customers, who want some sporty vehicles while being environmentally friendly.
Lexus may build such gasoline-electric models to reach “enthusiast groups” outside its core market, General Manager Jim Farley of Lexus said this week.
More-powerful Lexus hybrid models may help Toyota extend its hybrid dominance in the United States, with 78 percent of the market. The world’s biggest maker of hybrids helped boost 2007 U.S. sales of the vehicles by 44 percent through August, based on data from Bloomberg and Autodata Corp.
Lexus sells about 20,000 hybrids annually in the United States, including the RX 400h SUV as the image below.
“There is a huge opportunity for a luxury-car company to be seen as a solution provider in terms of getting away from carbon pollution and heavy reliance on oil,” said Farley, who is based at Toyota’s U.S. sales headquarters in Torrance, Calif.
Toyota has sold more than a million hybrids cars since its Toyota Prius was introduced in 1997.
The Japanese automaker’s U.S. hybrid sales this year were 190,057 for the first eight months as rising gasoline prices and wider model selection continued to add to the vehicles’ appeal.
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