Toyota plans to roll out a compact hybrid car around January that can travel 40 km on 1 liter of gasoline, the Japanese economic daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Wednesday. The car, which will be called “Aqua,” boasts around a 30 percent improvement in fuel efficiency than Toyota’s existing hybrid Prius.
The price tag will be 1.7 million yen (W26 million), which is 300,000 yen cheaper than the Prius, to appeal to younger customers. Competition is intensifying over fuel efficiency among Japanese carmakers.
Honda introduced its hybrid Fit last October that costs 1.59 million yen, with listed mileage of 26 km/l, while Mazda rolled out the gasoline-powered Demio in June that boasts 25 km/l.
Daihatsu, a subsidiary of Toyota, began selling the compact car Mira e:S with listed mileage of 30.4-32.6 km/l. The Japanese government plans to make it mandatory for cars to boost the average fuel efficiency of automobiles from 16.3 km/l as of 2009 to 20.3 km/l by 2020.
