The Australian government has allocated A$500 million ($475 million) towards the Green Car Innovation Fund to encourage development of low-emissions vehicles. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Toyota would get A$35 million in grants for Camry hybrid production.
Toyota will start assembling its Camry hybrid cars in Australia in early 2010 and aim to produce 10,000 of them a year, in its latest effort to popularize such fuel-efficient vehicles.
That would make Australia the fourth country to build gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles.
“We decided to build the Camry hybrid in Australia because Australians are keenly aware of environmental issues including global warming,” Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe told a news conference in Nagoya, central Japan, attended by visiting Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
