The Prius That Shook.. - VFAQ Prius Site

engineer, he would not have made the same decision.
As mentioned earlier, the launch date for Prius was
moved up a year from the end of 1998 to the end of 1997,
due to the strong beliefs of Okuda and Shoichiro Toyoda.
However, this decision was kept confidential within the
company.
Although Wada had agreed to the new policy to launch a
year earlier, he was not totally confident that it could be
done after witnessing the actual development progress
and particularly the delay in the development of battery and
inverter (IGBT). BR-VF's Yaegashi had also asked Wada, "If
there ever should be problems at line-off, we would like you
to delay the launch date." Wada had agreed to it by saying,
"Since it is an entirely new car, there will not be a problem in
terms of sales if the launch is delayed. If you really can't do it,
we won't force it."
However, the situation would completely change if THS
were to be announced in March. The launch date of the
end of 1997 had only been an internal decision. If the launch
date were publicly announced, it would become a social
responsibility to make that happen.
Wada called Uchiyamada and Yaegashi the following day,
and told them that the THS would be announced in
March.
The two objected by saying, "We don't think it's
possible yet. We don't even have the actual fuel economy
figure." However, there was no way of reversing Okuda's
decision.
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