Toyota Prius Top-selling car in Japan and Green Car Succcess

Toyota Prius

Toyota Prius as the benchmark—especially when viewed from a global perspective. Ten years after hitting the U.S. market, and with zero government incentives for hybrids in place, Toyota sold 125,000 Priuses so far this year. Meanwhile in Japan—where fuel prices are higher and government incentives were in place until September—Toyota sold 297,500 Priuses in the first 11 months of the year. The year-to-date Prius sales in Japan, just below 300,000, means the Toyota Prius will break all-time Japanese records for annual sales of an individual model. Now Toyota Prius is the no. 1 selling car in Japan in November 2010 and continued 18th successive month on top. 

Week - 14 Segmenting and Targeting Markets

                                                  Market is people or organizations with needs or wants and with the ability and the willingness to buy. Toyota company make all kinds of cars for people need and want to buy. Toyota products are segmenting  markets which targets age, gender, income, ethnic background, and family life cycle. Example Toyota makes SUVS and VAN for the family and Lexus for the high income customers . Toyota Matrix are made for the teens. Toyota make Prius for environmental lover. Toyota Prius has the highest environmental impact. Toyota have campaign about the go-green earth and recommend their customer to buy Prius because Toyota believes that Prius owner save the earth and they gets same value of using the other cars.  

Toyota's engineer green campaign 

                           

Toyota Prius Voluntary Recall Campaign

Toyota has announced that over 650,000 of its hybrid Prius vehicles will be called in for a voluntary repair program to fix a coolant pump problem which may cause overheatin resulting in decreased engine performance. Over half the cars affected, which were manufactured between 2004 - 2007, are located in the US.  The manufacturer has used a different pump design since 2007,in the prius as well as its other hybrids.The problem isn't a safety issue and there have been no accidents or injuries. Toyota  will be informing all registered owners of the prius of the repeair program in early December, inviting them to visit their local dealership for a complimentary replacement part and repair. the part and labor is expected to cost the company $100 USD per vehicle.

Week - 13 Developping and Managing Products: Toyota Different Inventions of Violin Playing Robot

Toyota makes not only cars, they also make different products. Violin playing Robot is one of the example. It is not a new products of Toyota but it is showing Toyota makes some thing different than the cars.

Week - 13 Developing and Managing Products

Toyota had pioneered a new product development system. Toyota give a outline of how the system worked which are heavy-weight program management with strong team leaders, intensive horizontal communication across departments, and simultaneous engineering knowledge.The whole Toyota methods are the chief engineer, set-based concurrent engineering, the front-loaded development process, leveled process flow, rigorous standardisation of design, process, and engineering skills, etc – is clearly explained along with the philosophy behind the use of each technique.

Toyota Preparing Three Electric cars for 2012 Launch

IQ Electric Car

The Toyota  preparing three electric cars. those are Rav4 EV, IQ EV, and Plug-in version of Prius. Prius Plug-in Hybrids are now being driven daily in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Commercial, government, and university fleets and individual drivers are putting this advanced Prius through its paces. Toyota is targeting 50,000 unit commercial sales in 2012 of this PHEV with a 14-mile electric range. Other side RAV4 will have an electric range of 80 to 110 miles using 30 to 40 kWh of Panasonic battery cells integrated into a Tesla pack – impressive for an SUV. The body will be built by Toyota in Canada, the drive system by Tesla in California, and the final assembly site has yet to be determined. In 2012, a stylish city car iQ-based EV will also be introduced in the U.S., Japan and Europe. Launch preparations call for road trials in Japan, U.S., and Europe starting in 2011. Launch in China is also being considered, with road trials planned for 2011.

Toyota Unveiled 4-layer All Solid-State Battery

4-layer solid-state battery

 Toyota has unveiled a prototype of its all-solid-state battery in Japan, a laminated cell measuring about 10cm x 10cm. The company is already actively engaged in the development of all-solid-state batteries and lithium-air batteries as next-generation batteries. The benefit of an all-solid-state battery is that in an ideal state, the lithium spreads faster than electrolyte, making it theoretically possible to realize a high output power. It's also worth mentioning that all-solid-state batteries are safer than organic electrolytes, which burn at high temperatures. Toyota has confirmed that the prototype battery can be used at a temperature of 100 degrees Celsius, something that existing lithium-ion rechargeable batteries using electrolytes are unable to do.