Toyota to Manufacture Hybrid Camry in US

7 January 2005

AFX. The Daily Yomiuri reports that Toyota Motor Corp plans to produce Camry hybrids in the US.

According to the report, Toyota will export the engine and hybrid systems from Japan to its assembly plant in Kentucky.

Toyota Camry has been the top-selling car in the US for the third straight year, with output of some 420,000 vehicles last year, and this, along with spikes in crude oil prices, helped prompt the world's second-largest automaker to decide producing hybrid vehicles in US, the report said.

As noted here earlier, the Hybrid Camry could be out as soon as the 2006 model year. It will be very interesting to see how Toyota weights efficiency versus performance in its design.