Toyota will be boosted by $73million in federal and state taxpayer funded assistance in Australia – despite the fact that its hybrid car sales are underperforming.
The money will go towards the production of more than 100,000 hybrid and fuel efficient petrol engines from the company’s Altona plant in Victoria.
However, new figures suggest that hybrid cars aren’t fairing well in the country. The Toyota Camry Hybrid, the first subsidised project in the Federal government’s green car scheme, is selling well below expectations.
It was expected to attract around 10,000 buyers this year – however, by the end of August less than 4,000 sales had been registered.
The sales figures were broken down by The Weekend Australian. It showed that Hybrid Camry sales were 40 per cent below what Toyota had originally anticipated. Indeed of the 3,993 sold by the end of last month only 889 were private sales.
However, the government believes that there is a bigger picture with Federal Industry Minister Kim Carr stating that the taxpayer grant would be used to install cutting edge plant and equipment to help anchor Toyota’s operations in Australia for years to come. The company’s decision will also lock in thousands of local automotive jobs.
