NAGOYA (Kyodo) Toyota Motor Corp. plans to debut before year's end the SAI, its own emblem variant of its Lexus HS250h midsize hybrid sedan, offering a bigger alternative to its current best-selling Prius, sources said Friday.
The Lexus HS250h, which sports a non-Toyota emblem, was released in mid-July. The SAI will have the same basic structure but the exterior and interior designs will differ, the sources said.
"The drive will feel lighter," one source involved in development noted.
The starting price of the SAI is expected to fall somewhere between the ¥2.05 million of the new Prius and the ¥3.95 million for the HS250h, the sources said.
Toyota President Akio Toyoda has said the automaker will focus on diversifying its hybrids, especially with the Prius and the new hybrid-only Lexus sedan receiving robust orders on the back of recent government subsidies and tax breaks for energy-saving cars.
Toyota also plans to release a cheaper compact hybrid based on its Vitz model with better fuel efficiency than the new Prius and a hybrid minivan as early as 2011.
But the carmaker will need to reinforce its battery production capacity, with deliveries of both the Prius and the HS250h falling far behind the booming orders, observers said.
Meanwhile, Toyota's domestic sales for August are expected to see about a 10 percent increase from a year earlier to mark the first year-on-year rise in 13 months, owing to the popularity of the Prius and other factors, industry sources said.
Toyota has posted year-on-year declines in monthly domestic sales since last August, when it sold about 85,000 units.