Toyota will swap your hybrid if you’re not happy

Toyota Ireland is pushing its hybrid model range hard as it seeks to steal customers disgruntled with diesels, and it's just come up with a get-out-of-jail-free offer for those wavering about buying a part-electric car.

The Toyota Hybrid Challenge is inviting Irish buyers to order a Yaris, Auris, RAV4 or Prius hybrid before the 31st of July this year, and if they’re not happy with it, will swap it for a regular petrol or diesel version for free. The offer lasts for the first six months of ownership, and will put those owners, free of charge, into an equivalent conventional petrol or diesel model should they fail to love their hybrids.

To qualify for the Hybrid Challenge offer, drivers must simply take a free 24 hour test drive in their Toyota hybrid model of choice, and then make a purchase before the end of July. Commenting on the announcement, Michael Gaynor, Marketing Director, Toyota Ireland said, "With the Hybrid Challenge, we are providing the easiest, most risk free way for Irish drivers to explore a better way of driving, and are so confident that once people experience driving a Toyota hybrid they will love the smoother, quieter, more stress free drive and won't want to ever switch back."

Toyota is touting the fuel economy of its hybrids as a major attraction, with the new Prius claiming a 94mpg combined economy figure and the Yaris hybrid scoring a 70g/km figure. Toyota is also hitting the competition where it hurts in maintenance terms though, claiming a servicing cost that's as much as one third lower than a normal petrol or diesel car thanks to "a variety of reasons including the fact that hybrids don't have a clutch and have less wear and tear on items like brake discs and tyres." There's also a distinct swipe at the likes of Volkswagen and Opel, and their suffering of diesel emissions scandals, with a line in the press release which reads "combining a petrol engine and an electric motor means that Toyota hybrids emit from just 70g/km, which is incredibly low for a family car. In addition, Toyota hybrid emits just one-tenth of the NOX pollution of diesel engines, with no particulate matter, giving us better air quality."

As one former senior Toyota Ireland executive put it, years before the diesel scandal ever broke, ‘focusing on Co2 emissions by picking diesel is ridiculous. We’ll save the planet but none of us will be able to enjoy it because we’ll all be dead from lung cancer.”

The environmental angle is an interesting one, because traditionally, Toyota in Ireland hasn’t sold its hybrids on that basis. For its Irish customers, the company has instead pushed the virtues of economy and saving cash at the pumps, and quietness and refinement around town, as well as the standard-fit automatic gearbox. In recent years though, the company has seen a distinct uptake in buyers seeking out hybrids for environmental reasons, especially those over the age of fifty. Anecdotal evidence from Toyota dealers suggests that many of these purchases are down to people becoming grandparents for the first time, and realising that they need to do a better job of stewarding the environment. Hybrid car sales have doubled so far this year in Ireland, much of which can be put down to the launch of a new generation of Prius in February, but at just over 1,700 units (including plugin hybrids) they’re still a drop in the ocean compared to the 70,000 diesel cars sold in 2016 thus far.