Toyota Aims To Become Biggest Hybrid Brand In Europe

With sales of petrol-electric models accounting for as much as 30% of the company’s total sales in western Europe, Toyota is looking to build on that momentum and secure their position as the continent’s no1 petrol-electric hybrid brand.

In an interview with Autocar, Toyota Europe executive VP Karl Schlicht pointed out that their western European sales had already climbed by around 10% in 2015, bringing the total number to 874,000 units.

Schlicht is confident that models such as the Yaris and Auris will help drive the company forward even more, as the latter is on track to break a 3% market share and become the fourth best-selling model among European C-Segment cars. As for the Yaris, sales have reached a record high despite the fact it’s technically a five-year old model.

Among last year’s roughly 270,000 hybrid model sales, Schlicht revealed that 60% of Auris sales in Europe are petrol-electric hybrids, just like the same can be said about 40% of Yaris sales.

“Orders for the new RAV4 crossover are running at 40% of our total orders, but we can’t get enough supply from the factory.”

The Toyota RAV4 Hybrid currently has little to no opposition in terms of direct rivals in Europe.