What price Hybrid Camry?

Toyota is "keeping cards close to the chest" on the pricing for the Camry Hybrid. Those were the words of PR Manager, Mike Breen during the pilot pre-production build media event earlier today.

Breen would not be drawn on the subject of pricing for the petrol/electric mid-sizer, but ruled out the American pricing structure, whereby the Camry Hybrid is more expensive than the Prius.

That reinforces comments from Toyota's Senior Executive Director Sales and Marketing, David Buttner, during the local launch of the new Prius back in July. At the time, Buttner declared that the Camry Hybrid would start from under $40,000 for both levels of trim. Although he wasn't any further forthcoming than that, Buttner dropped a couple of hints during the media event today.

"While we're still deliberating over the price of Camry, we want it to be competitive in the Australian marketplace and we don't want to frighten people away with a significant [price] premium," he said.

"When you look at the diesel to petrol premium now, it's about three, three and a half [thousand dollars], in most cases -- and I think to go outside that wouldn't really give us the best fertile ground to sell the product here in Australia..."

Working on that basis, an entry-level Camry Hybrid approximating the specification and trim level of the conventional Camry Ateva, could be priced from around $36,000 to $37,000.

If it could be pitched lower, that leaves room for the higher-grade model to be profitable and still sell at a price below $40,000.

The Carsales Network asked Breen whether the Prius had been priced from around $40,000 to prepare buyers for the higher prices of the Camry Hybrid over the conventional Camry Hybrid. Breen flatly refuted that.

"That was the price that was negotiated with TMC, probably three or four years ago," he said of the Prius.

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