Toyota to increase the number of hybrid trained technicians

If they reach their goal of 5,000, they will cover about 1/3 of their techs in the US. There are 1,200 US dealerships in the US. With that many techs, they should have a hybrid trained technician at each dealership. Most of the differences in the hybrid training involve the batteries, cables and motor generators. Also, the tech needs to learn how to turn off the car so it will not restart spontaneously.

Of note: Bergen expects that hybrid trained techs will be better prepared to work on fuel cell vehicles as well.

Toyota juices ranks of hybrid-trained 'techs' -- Newsday.com

At the end of 2004, the automaker had 3,480 technicians trained to work on Toyota hybrids. Bill Bergen, the University of Toyota's national dealer education manager for operations and technical training, says he expects that number to rise to 5,000 in 2005