Toyota
Toyota plans to quadruple its production of fuel-saving hybrid cars and may launch a separate Prius brand.
Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota’s president, said the firm planned to make 1 million hybrid cars a year within a few years.
This year it is on track to sell about 250,000, of which 40,000 will be in Europe.
Watanabe said he would not comment on suggestions that the company would create a separate “green” brand of cars under the Prius name, in much the same way it had launched Lexus to tackle the luxury market.
“We are right in the middle of developing all that,” he said.
