Toyota to phase out Hybrid Synergy Drive brand
Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive badging will soon be phased out, according to Toyota Motor Sales USA’s president Jim Lentz. Instead, future hybrid-only models by Toyota will have Prius badging, and conventionally powered cars that also have a hybrid model added to its range like the Lexus RX will just be called the RX Hybrid.
It seems that the marketing dollars spent on building the Hybrid Synergy Drive badging into a brand is not really working, with consumers being focused on the Prius name instead. Toyota wants to expand its hybrid-only passenger car range into a few models rather than the current one-model range, and all of these cars will be called Prius, perhaps as a suffix or something similiar.
May 13, 2008 @ 4:15 am
establishing a new brand won’t be more expensive ?
From my point of view, hybrid still not a complete solution to be our future energy source. More likely do they(Toyota) afraid if this technology have less popularity will direct affected to their “Toyota” brand image.
May 13, 2008 @ 6:54 am
Name is the Image in marketing.
May 13, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
Prius-Hilux
Prius-Celica
Prius-IS 250
Is this what toyota is going for?
Or maybe just Hilux-P