Toyota Motor Europe President Tadashi Arashima says that the company has plans for eighteen completely new or heavily revised models which will emit less than 140 grams of CO₂ per kilometer by the end of next year. Those sound like very ambitious plans but Toyota, which currently averages 149g/km for its line of vehicles in Europe, could be capable of such heroics. If they indeed make this happen, it would mean that half of all Toyotas sold in Europe would meet that low carbon emission target, up from roughly thirty percent last year. Under newly-proposed European Commission rules, Toyota would need to average roughly 127g/km of CO₂ emissions by 2012, so an aggressive mid-range target such as this one might be a necessity.

No indication of how Toyota plans to implement these new standards was given. Interestingly, Arashima suggests that some cost increases would need to be passed on to the consumer, but the Japanese company would take a wait-and-see approach before making any adjustments of its own. Consumer acceptance towards other brands could set a precedent for Toyota to follow.

[Source: Automotive News Europe - sub. req'd]

Take all Toyota and Lexus sales in Europe since 2000, figure out which of those vehicles were hybrids and you'll get a number larger than 101,235. That's how many Toyota has sold as of the end of July. If Toyota ever wondered if hybrids were a good idea in diesel-friendly Europe, these sales - and the fact that Toyota sold more than 50,000 hybrids in the last 13 months - must be making the decision easier to justify. As in America, the Prius is the runaway best-seller, with more than 73,000 sold in Europe. Thierry Dombreval, executive vice-president of Toyota Motor Europe, now calls the gas-electric hybrid powertrain "a mainstream technology for Europe." Let's get that next-gen Prius out already.

[Source: Toyota]

2010 is shaping up to be a big year for Toyota. Company officials have previously announced that they would start selling a diesel hybrid that year, and now the Nihon Keizai Shimbun has reported that 2010 is the year Toyota wants 50 percent of its new car sales to be either fuel-efficient diesels or hybrid models. That's 50 percent in Europe, not worldwide.

These two categories of vehicles made up 43 percent of Toyota's one million new car sales in Europe in 2005, with 41 percent being diesel and 2 percent hybrids. Toyota doesn't just want to increase the percentage of clean cars sold, but the numbers as well. Company PR folks are saying they predict 1.5 million new Toyota passenger vehicles sold there in 2010. Diesel models already make up more than 50 percent of the overall European market.

Related:

• Toyota to sell diesel hybrid in 2010

[Source: Green Car Congress