Japanese hybrid sales jump

A report by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association (JADA) said that one out of eight new cars sold in May in Japan was a gasoline-electric hybrid. Hybrid sales jumped 2.8% year-on-year to 21,601 units, the group said, 9.1% higher than April’s figures. The rise in sales was due to the popularity of local car companies’ latest hybrid vehicles, such as Honda Motor Co.’s Insight and Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius sedan. Sales may also have been boosted by tax incentives which were recently introduced for hybrid cars. Due to brisk sales of hybrid vehicles in the country, Toyota said it will begin leasing about 500 of its plug-in hybrid cars in Japan, the United States and Europe from the end of 2009, mostly to local governments and corporate users. The plug-in hybrid is based on Toyota’s new low-cost Prius model and can be recharged from a household power supply grid. It will be the first Toyota hybrid to be powered by lithium ion batteries. Toyota said it plans to introduce about 200 vehicles in Japan, 150 units in the United States, and 150 cars in Europe, including 100 in France. (June 4, 2009)