New Prius models could be Made in the USA
Thanks to increased demand, and the ability of making the batteries and other hybrid components smaller, Toyota will likely build future Prius models in the United States, Toyota Vice chairman Fujio Cho said in a Wall Street Journal article published today and caught by EV World.
The challenge will be if Toyota's engineers can shrink the key components by a half or even three-quarters, Cho said. Toyota had considered building the current-model Prius cars in America, but because most of the hybrid technology is bulky and made in Japan, it would have been too expensive to do so. Cho said Toyota plans to sell about 3 million cars a year in America by 2010, and about 75 percent of would be domestically built.
[Source: The Wall Street Journal via EV World]
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