Export potential for frugal Camry?

Toyota Australia's Altona plant is one of just five around the world building the Hybrid Camry. At last count, as many as eight Toyota plants are building Camry, so it's a tribute to the local blokes that TMC (Toyota Motor Corporation) in Japan gave them the go-ahead to build the petrol/electric edition.

The Hybrid Camry arrives here halfway through the current car's model lifecycle and Toyota's sales projections for the locally-manufactured hybrid are about 10,000 units per year for the Australian market, with a further 300 allocated to New Zealand.

That's a sizeable chunk of the 23,067 units of Camry Toyota sold in Australia last year -- and it will likely constitute an even larger percentage of Camry sales for 2009.

So that would suggest Toyota anticipates many of the Hybrid's domestic sales will merely replace existing (conventional) Camry sales. Does that mean the money spent readying the Camry Hybrid for local manufacture has been none-too-wisely invested? About $35 million of that investment is known to have been provided out of federal government coffers, too.

Perhaps the argument revolves around whether Toyota can make a case for exporting the Camry Hybrid to markets other than here and NZ. Equally, there may be no opportunity for TMCA (Toyota Motor Corporation Australia) to introduce the Hybrid model to markets within its jurisdiction before the current car is due for replacement in 2012.

We asked Mike Breen, Toyota's Manager of Public Relations, whether the Camry Hybrid has been too late coming to market in Australia.

"Possibly," he responded. "You could say that, but there are reasons why...

"We were keen to try to bring the car here. TMC weren't in a position to let the car come to Australia, because they were still in the process of testing that technology -- in a mass-produced car to go to families in the volumes they were looking at.

"I think their plan was to wait until they had the car on the market in the United States for some time -- and then roll it out around the world."

But now that the car's here, what about left-hand drive exports?

"There's no word on that yet," answers Breen, who also acknowledges that there's little appeal in the Camry Hybrid for markets served by TMCA in the Middle East -- where fossil fuel is abundant and cheap.

Breen also reiterates a point made in the past by his colleague, David Buttner, that TMCA's strongest competition in markets other than Australia comes from other Camry-building plants around the world.

"China builds them, the United States builds them, Thailand... so there's export potential from any one of those countries as well," explains Breen.

"Our biggest competition is from other Toyota plants around the world, so I guess we'd have to build up a case to substantiate the claim to export..."

With the Middle East a tough proposition for the Camry Hybrid, what about other markets in Africa, where proximity and environment actually support an argument to export from Australia? Breen says that TMCA used to export the Camry there when the company was importing the Corolla from South Africa, but the two-way trade has since ceased.

While TMCA is "always investigating" expansion into other markets, any move has to be cleared with the parent company in Japan.

Breen says that the principal stumbling block faced by TMCA in finding additional export markets is: "Having to put our case to TMC to convince them that we should have that market..."

"It's up to TMC to make those decisions."

If the parent company has to go through a drawn-out process in assessing the validity and strength of the business case for Australian LHD exports of Camry Hybrid, at least TMCA is at the same disadvantage as any other regional arm of the company.

"They all have to go through the same process," says Breen of the company's plants in other markets.

"There's no favouritism, it's just from a TMC point of view -- globally -- it suits the manufacturing processes and currency exchange. There's a lot of things that go towards making the final decision..."

Read the latest Carsales Network news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at www.carsales.mobi