Currently reading: Toyota Hybrid World Tour 2013 picture gallery
For the first time in history, the Japanese manufacturer gathered together all of its hybrid and electric vehicles from around the globe

This week Toyota hosted its inaugural Hybrid World Tour event in Ypsilanti, Michigan, just down the road from Ann Arbor where the Japanese manufacturer has a research and development facility

Toyota pulled together every car it currently produces that is either a hybrid, battery electric vehicle or fuel cell from around the globe.

That meant the US-market Camry rubbing bumpers with the spectacular Alphard minivan, and the British-built Auris models sitting side-by-side with the sumptuous Lexus 600h L.

During the conference-style event, some of the company's global top brass reflected on the development of the hybrid vehicle market that Toyota helped to foster with the introduction of the original petrol-electric Prius back in 1997.

Underlining Toyota's ongoing commitment to the hybrid cause, there was fighting talk from Bob Carter, Senior Vice President for Automotive Operations, who issued a challenge for the rest of the car industry to embrace hybrid technology to the same extent.

"We believe so strongly in this… that we have consistently encouraged the industry to expand the use of hybrid technology," he said. "15 years after the arrival of what some have characterised as 'a science project', we are seeing this happen.

"Over the past five years, the percentage of hybrid sales at Toyota has grown from 10 to 16 per cent of our total sales mix. Ford is less than three per cent and Honda is less than two per cent.

"Our product line is more than twice as large as any other manufacturer and we currently account for more than 60 per cent of US hybrid sales and 70 per cent of the nearly three million hybrids on US roads today.

"And while hybrid as a percentage of the total market is just under four per cent, we believe that it can, and must, grow.

"Therefore, I think it’s appropriate to offer a good-natured challenge to the auto industry.

"Toyota has now sold more than 5 million hybrids globally. I would like to see us, as an industry, accomplish the same thing in the U.S – that is five million hybrids in the US by close of business in 2016."

So what would Toyota's rivals have to do to match the broad scope of its alternatively fuelled vehicle range? Click on our picture gallery to view the entire range.

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Beastie_Boy 30 August 2013

One for the environ-mentalists to ponder...

How big was the carbon footprint shipping/driving/flying them all together for the photo shoot?

marj 31 August 2013

Beastie_Boy wrote: How big

Beastie_Boy wrote:

How big was the carbon footprint shipping/driving/flying them all together for the photo shoot?

Most of these are readily available in the US which is why I suppose it was arranged there.