Consumer Business Review: Toyota’s New Hybrids To Come, Big Tobacco Changes Focus

Toyota Motor Corporation (NYSE:TM) will introduce 21 hybrid vehicles during the next three years and projects sales of a minimum of 1 million such units between 2013 and 2015. Additionally, the company is to release a new electric car later in 2012, for which Panasonic Corporation (NYSE:PC) will supply the battery, and a fuel-cell vehicle by 2015.

Don’t Miss: Will it Soon Rain Dividends on Shareholders?

Big tobacco, including Reynolds American, Inc. (NYSE:RAI), Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO),and Lorillard, Inc. (NYSE:LO) are coughing up less money on advertising while they concentrate on pricing, says a Federal Trade Commission report. It’s an odd twist of fate for firms to spend billions in developing brand images, and then to see products start to become an impersonal commodity, at the mercy of consumers looking for deals. (At this point, your old econ prof is again drawing a supply and demand graph on the board.)

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