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Toyota to halve hybrid price for next Prius

Fri Oct 26, 2007 12:29pm BST
By Chang-Ran Kim, Asia auto correspondent
TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota will slash the price and size of its hybrid system by around half for the next-generation Prius model, and use a nickel-metal hydride battery instead of lithium-ion, a top executive said.
"When we went from the first-generation Prius to the second-generation, we did the same thing," Executive Vice President Kazuo Okamoto, in charge of Toyota's research and development, told reporters in Tokyo.
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Okamoto conceded that diesel engines were inherently better suited for saving fuel over long-distance cruising than hybrids, which capture energy lost during stop-and-start city driving. But he stressed that Toyota's future hybrids would be just as good -- if not better -- than today's diesels on the highway.
Diesel cars now make up more than half of new car sales in Europe, but are virtually non-existent in Japan.
Some European automakers -- as well as domestic ones such as Nissan and Honda are looking to change that, but Okamoto said Toyota would not join the fray.
"There's really no reason to bring diesel cars (to the Japanese market)," he said.

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