With its hybrid electric vehicle, HEV success with the Prius, Toyota tweaks its estimates as consumer demand wanes for bigger cars.
The gist, according to Bloomberg, Toyota is cutting short its SUV and pickup truck manufacturing estimates for 2009 as US sales of its bigger items will be lowered by 10%. Apparently, drivers are less and less inclined to spend gas on them. This is the lowest in the U.S. since 1993, according to J.D. Power & Associates.
Toyota went as far as to halt production of its biggest SUVs and Tundra pickups for 3 months after sales dipped 15% in the first half of the year. Instead, it will build more Prius in the U.S. from 2010.
So what does this mean for HEVs? With a long awaited anticipation of its plugin-hybrid, Toyota will introduce the Prius PHEV by the end of 2009, ahead of its original schedule of 2010, and mass-produce electric vehicles, EV in the early 2010s. As a side note, the Prius PHEV will be the first one available from a mainstream manufacturer to fleet customers to electric sockets to recharge.
So is Toyota correct to stop manufacturing gas guzzling big vehicles and concentrate on smaller ones as well as hybrids? Apparently so, if you consider AutoBlogGreen’s post.
The gist, According to a recent survey 62% of consumers want their next vehicle to be smaller. However, it also seems they want feature and option content. This might be explained by decades of ever bigger and more products being offered to consumers year after year.
This is another monkey wrench that harsh reality of expensive gas has thrown to automakers to deal with.