Toyota Motor Corp. said on June 15 that it aims to boost output of environmentally friendly hybrid-powered vehicles to 300,000 in 2005, up from 19,000 in 2000, according to Reuters. The announcement came on the day the company unveiled its new four-wheel-drive Estima hybrid minivan, the world’s first hybrid minivan, for the Japanese market. “We aim to increase our hybrid vehicle production by 10 times our current output to 300,000 vehicles in 2005,” Toyota President Fujio Cho told a news conference. The company now makes 3,000 hybrid vehicles a month, a spokeswoman said. Toyota sold 12,700 hybrid Prius cars during the January-May period, and expects to sell more than 20,000 in 2001. The new hybrid minivan is Toyota’s second hybrid vehicle, following the success of its Prius model. Estima attains mileage of 51 miles per gallon, more than twice that of comparable conventional cars, according to Toyota. Estima will have an MSRP of 3.35 million yen, or approximately $27,620. Emissions of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides are more than 75 percent below Japanese emissions standards set in 2000. Estima can generate 1,500 watts of electric power and has standard 100-volt household AC sockets, allowing passengers to use home appliances such as laptop computers in the car. Toyota said it aims for sales of 1,000 vehicles a month, with first month orders of 1,500. Toyota sold an average of 10,000 non-hybrid Estimas a month in Japan in calendar year 2000, and more than 9,600 a month in the January-May period this year, according to industry data. By April, Toyota had sold 60,000 Prius vehicles in Japan, Europe, and the United States. The model was first launched in Japan in December 1997. The company plans to export the Estima hybrid in the future, according to Cho. “Probably the United States will be next, but we have not made any concrete plans yet,” Cho said.