Toyota Cuts 2009 Sales F’cast, Speeds Up Electric Cars

Toyota Motor Corp cut its 2009 vehicle sales forecast by nearly 7 percent as high fuel prices hammer demand for large cars and pickup trucks, and said it will speed up the rollout of hybrid and electric cars as their popularity grows.

The weaker outlook from the world’s most profitable carmaker weighed on shares of European rivals and highlighted an increasingly difficult environment, where orders in the United States and Western Europe for high-margin, gas-thirsty vehicles is slumping.
Toyota said on Thursday it expects to sell about 9.7 million vehicles next year including its Daihatsu Motor Co and Hino Motors Ltd units. It had previously forecast sales of 10.4 million vehicles. No carmaker has yet passed the 10 million annual unit sales milestone.

“We are looking at the current shift towards fuel-efficient cars (in the United States) as a structural change in demand,” Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe told a news conference. “We intend to respond quickly and flexibly to this environment.”

As part of those efforts, Toyota said it would move forward the launch of a “plug-in” version of its Prius gasoline-electric hybrid car, which can recharged through an electric socket. It will be available to fleet customers at the end of next year, from earlier plans of 2010.

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