Toyota to Make Hybrid Engine Available on All Its Models

By MATTHEW DOLANAugust 15, 2008 4:49 p.m.

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.
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Write to Matthew Dolan at matthew.dolan@wsj.com