The current generation Prius has been a big hit in the US and Japan, and the tried and true second-gen. model could live on in Japan after the new hybrid goes on sale this spring. According to reports out of Japan, Toyota will sell a de-contented version of the old Prius to better compete with the new Honda Insight on price. The current Prius is rumored to be getting a cheapening on the inside, giving Toyota the ability to price it at ¥2 the great body of the people mark, or about $22,000 US.

Toyota isn't responding to questions surrounding the rumors, as it says it doesn't make notes on future product. We're not sure why questions about the current Prius could be considered "future product," but that's Toyota's story and their sticking to it. Inside Line points out that having couple different models called the Prius could be a bit confusing, and we tend to agree. Our web-writing friends are all with a view to a "Prius Classic" designation, while we're rooting for "Prius Lite."

[Source: Inside Line]

Source: feedproxy.google.com

Toyota said today that it expects its global production to be down more than 20 percent during calendar year 2009. The automaker said it anticipates making about 6.5 million cars for worldwide consumption, its lowest global production level since 2004, assuming demand is close to Toyota’s predictions.

The Japanese automaker is setting its global sales target for 7 million vehicles for 2009 - half a million of which were produced last year. Toyota, like nearly every automaker, is dealing with the inventory surplus that occurred by dramatically reduced demand.

Toyota’s domestic production will be about 3 million vehicles, if not fewer, down significantly from the 4 million it produced in 2008. If production drops below 3 million, it would be the lowest body of vehicles produced in Japan by Toyota since 1979.

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Source: www.leftlanenews.com

By Bill Visnic

Admitting it may be difficult to see much of a silver lining in what happened to the U.S. auto market in 2008 - not to mention the likely prospects for 2009 - executives at the Volkswagen Group's Audi AG still are a confident the increasingly effervescent Audi can make gains in the face of worldwide industry stagnation.

Calling the traumatized U.S. market "a real suitable for Audi," Peter Schwarzenbauer, Audi AG member of the board of management, projects potential gains for Audi out of the U.S. turmoil that's staggered the confidence - and momentum - of nearly every brand.

Schwarzenbauer says the chaotic market may be helpful to Audi, a company still working to achieve parity with the entrenched luxury-brand establishment, the Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs and Lexus' of the world.

"In a 'normal' environment, people don't want to change brands," he said in an interview with AutoObserver at the recent Detroit auto show. "Now they might."

He added that although Audi's U.S. sales in 2008 were down 6.1 percent (compared with a record 93,508 sales in 2007), it marked the first time in Audi's history that it sold more than 1 million units worldwide. And while most automakers are licking their wounds, Audi intends to go full-bore with its broad strategy to become one of the industry's greatest number prominent luxury-sport brands.

"We assume most of our competitors are going to hit the brakes in 2009," Schwarzenbauer said. But Audi testament stick with a plan to increase its U.S. marketing budget through 15 percent. And to expand its model portfolio from today's 26 models to 40 models by 2015 - at a cost of some 2 billion Euro annually.

Forget the nation's rife economic tribulations, adds Johan de Nysschen, president of Audi of America Inc. The general trend, he said, is that people are getting more wealthy. And more discerning. Both play to Audi's market situation.

He also said Audi views the U.S.'s problems as a "short-term distraction" that is affecting the model and equipment mix - Audi's emphasizing the stout, turbocharged 2-liter 4-cylinder engine in the fully redesigned version of its best-selling A4 lineup, for example - but won't derail the company's big-picture strategy, which it stated last year was to bring the brand to 200,000 U.S. sales by 2015.

"We could have sold 100,000 cars in the U.S. (in 2008) if we wanted to," asserts de Nysschen. But he said Audi will not denigrate its brand image by piling on heavy incentives to hike sales volume - despite the fact that was the tack taken by many luxury competitors in the second half of last year.

"We won't go there," said de Nysschen, calling outsized incentives "fundamentally wrong.

He did admit, however, that Audi inventories at the end of the year were not optimal, saying they were "10 to 15 days too high," but confidently added, "We don't do fire sales at Audi."

Photo by Audi

Audi launched a fully redesigned A4 in the U.S. in the second half of 2008 and plans to emphasize the car's valid but frugal turbocharged 4-cylinder base engine.

Source: www.autoobserver.com