Toyota Doubles U.S. Deliveries of the Prius Hybrid

October 6, 2004

Toyota Motor Sales announced on September 30th that it will double the number of Prius hybrid-electric vehicles for sale in the United States in 2005. Although the company has sold 100,000 of the vehicles in the United States since they first went on sale in mid-2000, the company now expects to sell 100,000 in 2005 alone. The boost in projected sales is the second for Toyota, which originally planned to sell 36,000 of its 2004 models, but increased its sales plan in December to 47,000 vehicles. Globally, Toyota has sold more than a quarter-million hybrid vehicles since it began selling the Prius in Japan in December 1997. See the Toyota press release.

One place where the Toyota Prius has found a home is at Hoffman-La Roche Inc., which has 20 of its sales representatives using the vehicles in a pilot program. Roche plans to continually integrate the Toyota Prius, the Ford Escape Hybrid, and other clean vehicles into its 1,400-car U.S. sales force, eventually replacing the entire fleet. The effort is part of the pharmaceutical company's commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent over the next five years. See the Roche press release.