- Toyota has said that the 2025 Camry will be available exclusively as a hybrid.
- The family sedan has been the best-selling car in the US for the past two decades.
- It has been available in petrol or hybrid versions since 2007, but from 2024 will be hybrid-only.
America’s most popular car is going hybrid-only from next year, according to Toyota.
The 2025 Toyota Camry, which is the latest version of the best-selling car in the US for the past 22 years, will be available exclusively as a hybrid, the Japanese automaker announced on Wednesday.
Customers have been able to choose between petrol and hybrid versions of the Camry since 2007, with Toyota being one of the first car companies to embrace hybrid technology.
From next year, however, new buyers will only have the one option — although like all of the automakers’ hybrids, the 2025 Camry will not be a plug-in hybrid, with its batteries charged by the car’s petrol engine and brakes.
The $26,000 Camry has been the best-selling car that is not a pickup truck or an SUV in the US for the past two decades. The latest version is expected to arrive in dealerships in Spring 2024.
The decision to make the upcoming version exclusively hybrid is a bold one from Toyota, which has so far chosen to prioritize hybrid cars over fully electric vehicles.
The carmaker’s chairman Akio Toyoda, who stepped down as CEO earlier this year, has been a long-time skeptic of the shift to EVs, previously saying that the “silent majority” of auto companies have doubts about whether electric vehicles are a sustainable business.
Toyota has nevertheless vowed to ramp up EV production as it seeks to compete with the likes of Tesla, and aims to sell 3.5 million battery-powered vehicles globally every year from 2030.
Toyota did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.
