Toyota Motor Corp. Prius hybrid line, coming off record U.S. sales last year, may not reach a target for growth in 2013 as gasoline prices fall faster than the automaker expected, its top North American executive said.
“It’ll be a challenge,” Jim Lentz, Toyota’s North American chief executive officer, said in an interview today in New York. “We’ll continue to push Prius and Prius family, but if it ends up that demand is less than the sales forecast, that may be adjusted,” he said without elaborating.
Toyota last month said it planned to sell about 250,000 Prius models in the U.S. this year, up 5.6 percent from 236,659 in 2012. Sales of the top-selling hybrid line -- comprising the main Prius hatchback, v wagon, c subcompact and plug-in Prius -- dropped 8.4 percent in the first quarter to 55,724.
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