Today I’m down in Altona – on the outskirts of Melbourne – at Toyota’s manufacturing plant for official launch of the Hybrid Camry. There are robots, politicians and fluoro yellow safety vests everywhere!
The Hybrid Camry, which is being built in Toyota’s Altona plant for the Australian, Middle East and New Zealand Markets, is expected to go on sale in February next year. Today, the company began pilot production with the symbolic act of pressing a giant power button.
The car itself will have a 20% fuel efficiency benefit over the current Camry, which is also manufactured in Altona. Full production of the Camry Hybrid will begin in December in the Toyota factory that has been thoroughly overhauled in order to be able to produce the new car.
The plan, once the car goes into mass production, is to produce 10,000 Camry Hybrids per year for Australia, and 300 per year for New Zealand. It’s the next stage in Toyota’s plan to have a Hybrid model in every car range by the 2020s. In the next four years, Toyota plan on adding another 6 car ranges running on Hybrid power – some new, some enhancements on the current line.
In terms of environmental impact, Toyota reckon that the Camry Hybrid will save $10 a week on fuel for the average car user, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a tonne.
David Anderton
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 3:50 PMplug-in?
AdamHC
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 4:15 PMThis looks great, a step in the right direction
Jim
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 4:37 PMwow. any word on what the price premium over the non-hybrid model will be?
Gisty
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 7:54 PMWOW ! Look at all those robots and only 3 workers. Do you think the robots will buy more or less cars now that they are hybrid?
Daniel
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 1:52 PMGreat, spend $15k more on the hybrid version to save $500/year. How good is that? Yeah, right.
Want to save fuel, downsize and buy a Diesel. These hybrids are simply put nothing more than a marketing con…
dan
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 2:28 PMThe whole appeal of electric cars for me is that they give you better acceleration than petrol, but don’t have many moving parts so they are way cheaper to maintain.
Hybrids are the worst of both worlds. You have 2 systems to maintain, and the car is really weighed down by having a petrol engine, radiator and fuel tank to lug around. To me all this car does is satisfy a few greenies. screw greenies. i just want better performance.
Chris
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 12:42 PMTwo observsations. 1st, the event was attended by Politicians and 2nd the claim that “The car itself will have a 20% fuel efficiency benefit over the current Camry.”
Hybrid cars such as these are at their most beneficial in cities where their regenerative braking and stop/start technology can be used frequently.
However, on the open road economy will be worse than the regular car because of the extra weight that is being lugged around.
Councils, such as my local Toowoomba Regional Council will buy these for the image but fail to realise the environmental benefits.
In Europe, Toyota have a car called the Avensis (http://www.toyota.co.uk/cgi-bin/toyota/bv/generic_editorial.jsp?navRoot=toyota_1024_root&fullwidth=TRUE&edname=TOD-Avensis-htm&catname=/toyota_1024_root/main_nav/pageTopNav/Zone+NG+Avensis&menuid=316985&zone=Zone+See+the+Range&id=TOD-Avensis) which I think is a little smaller than the Camry (1400kg versus 1500kg) but which is comparable.
Toyota UK claim the Avensis is capable of 6.5l/100km in 1.8 petrol form and 5.1l/100km in diesel form.
That’s more than a 20% reduction in the Camry’s 8.8l/100km (taken from Toyota AU’s website).
Whilst the Avensis probably has less power than the Camry, I question the benefits of the Camry Hybrid to Australia.
With the Hybrid being sold as the economical option, Toyota will never allow the introduction of their more economical 4-cylinder engines into the lineup.
The cost of building a hybrid car must be more than an equivalent non-hybrid car because there’s more stuff that needs to be put into it. This cost will be passed onto the consumer.
If the hybrid costs more to build, and is not the most economical option available, then why are our politicians backing it so fervently?
Hybrids have their place. BMW use the technology very effectively in their Efficient Dynamics lineup for example. However the Toyota Camry Hybrid is a white elephant, a political stunt and an unnecessary cost to our economy.