One Million

Toyota recently announced that it's passed the 1 million mark in the sale of hybrid vehicles worldwide.

Such nice big round numbers sometimes have psychological significance, and perhaps this marks a threshold, where the hybrid is no longer an innovation, but a normal part of the auto markets.

Of course, Toyota is no longer alone in bringing them to us, although Detroit still seems rather clumsy in this matter. The real challenge to Toyota in the hybrid end of the market is from another japanese giant, Honda. Here's the URL for an enthusiastic assessment (by a Brit, Steve Nelson) of the latest from Honda.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/display.var.1543980.0.0.php

And here's a discussion of the differences between the two Japanese corporation's approaches in this area.

http://www.vicnews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=36&cat=46&id=1021078&more=0

To my tastes, frankly, that second article, from a paper in British Columbia, Canada, sounds a bit too patly partisan, as if the reporter was simply putting his own name to a Honda hand-out. Still, I'm in no position out of my own technological ignorance to argue with it.