 Ford Motor Company, the world's second largest manufacturer of hybrids after Toyota Motor Corporation, reached the milestone of 400,000 hybrid electric vehicles produced in November 2014.After 18 years since the introduction of hybrid cars, Japan became in 2014 the first country to reach sales of over 1 million hybrid cars in a single year, and also the Japanese market surpassed the United States as the world's largest hybrid market.The redesigned and more efficient fourth generation Prius was released for retail customers in Japan in December 2015.