Japan's top automaker Toyota Motor Corp will begin making its ecological hybrid model in China by the end of next year, the first overseas assembly for the company's Prius vehicle.
The production using components shipped from Japan will be under an agreement with China FAW Group Corp, with which Toyota has a production and sales agreement, Toyota said in a statement yesterday.
FAW president Zhu Yanfeng and Toyota president Fujio Cho signed the deal yesterday to promote hybrid vehicles together in China, it said.
The companies haven't decided which plant will build the vehicles. Toyota now sells the Prius in Japan, North America, Europe and Australia. In China, the Prius will be marketed through FAW Toyota Motor Sales Co, a joint venture set up last year.
Both sides also agreed to consider the possibility of making an FAW-brand hybrid vehicle based on Toyota technology, but details were not yet decided, according to Toyota.
A hybrid car is more environmentally friendly and gets better mileage than a regular gasoline-engine car because a hybrid switches back and forth between an electric motor and a gasoline engine to deliver an efficient ride.
Although Toyota controls just 2 percent of the Chinese market, the market is rapidly growing. Toyota hopes to take a 10 percent share of the Chinese market by 2010.
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