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• Toyota to Open Hybrid-vehicle Exhibit at Johannesburg Summit
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• New 2003 Lincoln LS Unveiled In New York As US Open Gets Under Way
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• Volkswagen presents technology exhibition at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg
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News of August 28, 2002

Toyota to Open Hybrid-vehicle Exhibit at Johannesburg Summit

- Estima Hybrid and FCHV-4 to Exemplify Sustainable Mobility -

Toyota Estima Hybrid

Photo: Toyota

Tokyo - TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION (TMC) announced it will highlight its environmental leadership at the World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa, (Aug. 26-Sept. 4) with a special exhibit featuring two hybrid vehicles - including one powered by a fuel cell. The summit marks a decade since the unprecedented 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, raised environmental consciousness to globe-spanning levels.

The special exhibit, part of the Japan Pavilion at the summit, will feature Toyota's production gasoline/electric Estima Hybrid minivan and the hydrogen-powered FCHV-4 prototype. Accompanying display panels will present Toyota's overall approach to creating the "ultimate eco-car" and provide a look at specific Toyota achievements in this field.

Toyota has long believed that hybrid technologies hold the key to the future of the automobile. It introduced the world's first mass-produced hybrid vehicle-the Prius passenger car - back in 1997. Since then, it has broadened its hybrid lineup with the Estima Hybrid and a hybrid version of the Japanese-market luxury Crown sedan. Sales of Toyota hybrid vehicles topped the 100,000 mark in March this year, and Toyota plans to sell 300,000 hybrids a year by around 2005.

Toyota's hybrid endeavors include the application of fuel cells in what Toyota calls "fuel cell hybrid vehicles", or FCHVs. Toyota began its development of FCHVs in 1992. Units of its fourth prototype - the FCHV-4 - have covered a cumulative 110,000 kilometers on and off the test track (as of the end of June this year), providing valuable insight toward the commercialization of FCHVs in Japan and in the United States around the end of this year.

Both the Estima Hybrid and the FCHV-4 represent achievable environmental and resource-conservation solutions: the former has twice the fuel efficiency of conventional minivans and features the world's first commercialized electric four-wheel-drive system; the latter emits only water and is set to serve as the platform for a soon-to-be-marketed Toyota FCHV.

Toyota hopes the two display vehicles and accompanying panels will give visitors a clearer understanding of what it is doing to create a cleaner world through minimizing emissions, while securing-and even enhancing-the freedom of mobility.

(August 22, 2002)

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