| ElectroVelocity |

As the competition in the green-car segment of the international auto market expands vehicle manufacturers are coming under increasing pressure to keep up. Toyota has long been ahead of the curve with its standard setting hybrid Prius model that has been on sale since 1997. In an announcement made early on Tuesday Toyota has said it will launch 6 all new hybrid models by the end of 2012, 2 of the cars will be Lexus models and the other 4 will all be sold under the Toyota name.

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US hybrid cars sales saw a 20% jump in sales in May, the overall car market saw a 12.3% increase in sales so hybrids are outperforming the market by a large margin. The best seller is still the Toyota Prius (14,248 units), making up over half of all sales and the break out performance by the Ford Fusion Hybrid, with sales up 64% (2,486 units) for May, has surprised more than a few analysts. Toyota is still seeing some sales damage thought to be caused by the recent recall-nightmare with both the Camry Hybrid and Highlander Hybrid seeing a drop in sales, this buyer caution surrounding Toyota cars may be responsible for the jump in sales of non-Toyota hybrids like the Fusion, the Nissan Ultima Hybrid (+253.6% | 1,167 units) and the Chevy Silverado Hybrid (+179.4% | 299 units). Lanjut →

2011 is set to see the introduction of a plug-in capable Toyota Prius, capable of charging it’s lithium-ion cells from either a 110v or 220v household electrical outlet. Toyota currently has 500 of the plug-in hybrids on the road in Japan, Europe and the US for testing purposes, all of these test vehicles are fitted with “black box” data recorders that transmit detailed telemetry on daily activity back to Toyota in order to gauge how the vehicles will be used when they hit the market in early Lanjut →