Toyota Introduces Minicar in Japan to Regain Sales
Toyota Motor Corp. (7203), Asia’s biggest automaker, introduced a minicar in Japan today to regain domestic sales as demand shifts toward smaller vehicles.
The Pixis Space will sell for 1.12 million yen ($14,670) and has a fuel economy of 25.5 kilometers per liter, the Toyota City, Japan-based company said in a statement.
Toyota’s move follows a 29.5 percent drop in sales of cars, trucks and buses in Japan this year through August. By comparison, minicar sales declined 20.8 percent.
The new model is based on the Move Conte, made by Daihatsu Motor Co., which is 51 percent owned by Toyota, according to Bloomberg data. Toyota sold about 528,000 vehicles supplied by Daihatsu, Japan’s biggest minicar maker, in Japan last year.
The Pixis Space will be assembled at Daihatsu’s factory in Kyushu, southwest Japan.
Toyota, targeting sales of 60,000 Daihatsu-made vehicles a year, plans to introduce a total of three minicar models beginning with the Pixis Space, the company said last September.
Toyota fell 1.6 percent to 2,587 yen as of 2:10 p.m. in Tokyo trading.
To contact the reporters on this story: Anna Mukai in Tokyo at amukai1@bloomberg.net; Masatsugu Horie in Osaka at mhorie3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kae Inoue at kinoue@bloomberg.net
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