Toyota to launch two luxury vehicles in Japan, says paper

TOKYO: Toyota Motor Corp will launch two higher-end luxury vehicles in Japan during the next financial year as it seeks to capture a larger share of the luxury car market, says the Nikkei newspaper.

The automaker will introduce a luxury sport-utility vehicle, the Toyota Century, in its home market sometime between August and the end of March 2024, Nikkei said last Friday, citing anonymous sources.

A Toyota spokesperson said the company could not comment on its product plans.

The second luxury model is a minivan version of its Lexus brand, the Lexus LM, Nikkei said, likely to go on sale in the second half of the next financial year, which runs from April through March 2024.

Toyota is aiming for all sales of its luxury Lexus brand to be battery electric vehicles in Europe, North America and China by 2030 and all of the brand's sales globally starting in 2035, it said in December 2021.

In March of that year, the company said it planned to introduce 20 new or improved Lexus models by 2025, of which more than 10 would be electric.