"With today's announcement, Toyota has taken a significant step forward in ensuring that full hybrids become more accessible to a wider range of customers," Tadashi Arashima,Toyota Europe CEO said. "Such efforts are crucial if we are to see more low-carbon vehicles on European roads."
Although no official technical data has yet been releases, rumors say the new hybrid will rely on a 1.8-liter Atkinson gasoline engine developing 98 bhp connected to an electric unit that also generates 80 bhp.
"We are developing a low-priced hybrid vehicle like Honda's Insight," Akihiko Otsuka, chief engineer of the redesigned, third-generation Toyota Prius, said. in April. "We are going to compete by expanding our hybrid-vehicle lineup to smaller hybrids, in the class of the Vitz and Yaris.
"The Auris platform was designed so it could also carry a hybrid system," Otsuka said. "By making it flexible, it can accommodate future overseas production and reduce costs."
Toyota will rely heavily on its hybrids in the future, after posting a 26 percent drop in European sales for the first half of month.
"We expect our hybrid mix to strengthen, thanks to a strong order bank for the new generation RX 450h, which was launched in May with best-in-class CO2 of just 148 g/km. This should help to improve sales performance moving into the second half," said Andy Pfeiffenberger, Lexus Europe vice president added.
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