pFiled under: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/conceptcars/" rel="tag"Concept Cars/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/new-york-auto-show/" rel="tag"New York Auto Show/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/hybrids/" rel="tag"Hybrids/Alternative/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/trucks/" rel="tag"Trucks/Pickups/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/scion/" rel="tag"Scion/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/toyota/" rel="tag"Toyota/a/pa href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/detroit-2008-toyota-a-bat-concept/554987/"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2009/04/13_abat_concept-580op.jpg" //abr / div align="center"emstrongsmallToyota A-BAT Concept - Click above for a high-res image gallery/small/strong/embr //div br /Bob Carter, Toyota Motor Sales USA's vice president and general manager, told our man Mike Levine from PickupTrucks.com that the a href="http://www.autoblog.com/tag/ToyotaABAT/"Toyota A-BAT/a is on indefinite hold. According to Carter, "We have a lot of top priorities right now, and A-BAT isn't one of them."br /br /Although news of the A-BAT's a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/09/22/toyota-considering-building-a-bat-truck-cancels-small-diesel/"imminent arrival/a was circulating a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2009/02/02/scion-tc-replacement-on-the-way-4th-scion-could-be-anything/"as early as February/a, Toyota's decision to put the project on hold doesn't come as a surprise. With auto sales down overall - and pick-ups being hit particularly hard in the last year - the business case for a compact, hybrid truck would be hard to justify. br /br /Originally, it was assumed the a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/01/13/detroit-2008-toyota-a-bat-concept-revealed-after-dark/"A-BAT/a would be sold as a Scion, but with the "youth" brand's renewed focus on smaller vehicles (ala the a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2009/04/08/new-york-2009-the-scion-iq-goes-big-wheels/"Scion iQ concept/a that debuted at the a href="http://www.autoblog.com/tag/NewYorkAutoShow/"New York Auto Show/a), a pick-up would be in stark contrast to the rest of the line-up. br /br /"The market has changed dramatically over the last 12 months." Carter told Pickuptrucks.com, "We always keep reprioritizing - under good economic or recessionary times - what our planning is. [For now, the A-BAT is] on the shelf."br /br /br /div class="postgallery"pstrongGallery: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/detroit-2008-toyota-a-bat-concept/"Detroit 2008: Toyota A-BAT Concept/a/strong/pa href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/detroit-2008-toyota-a-bat-concept/566979/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/01/55_abat_concept-1a_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/detroit-2008-toyota-a-bat-concept/566941/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/01/39_abat_concepta_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/detroit-2008-toyota-a-bat-concept/566939/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/01/58_abat_concept_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/detroit-2008-toyota-a-bat-concept/566938/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/01/59_abat_concept_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/detroit-2008-toyota-a-bat-concept/566936/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/01/60_abat_concept_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //a/divbr /[Source: a href="http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2009/04/toyota-abat-to-remain-a-concept.html"Pickuptrucks/a]p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2009/04/13/toyota-a-bat-will-remain-a-concept-for-now/"Toyota A-BAT will remain a concept... for now/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.autoblog.com"Autoblog/a on Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:59:00 EST. 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