Toyota plans all gas-electric vehicles by 2012

TOYOTA PLANS
ALL GAS-ELECTRIC VEHICLES
BY 2012

Toyota Motor Corp., the world's third-largest automaker, plans to use gasoline-electric hybrid engines in all vehicles by 2012 to increase fuel efficiency and reduce tailpipe emissions, an executive said.

The gasoline-electric system emits as much as 40 percent less carbon dioxide than traditional internal-combustion engines, said Masatami Takimoto, managing director for engine engineering, in an interview at a Detroit conference. Toyota was the first to sell a hybrid, with the Prius car in 1997. The company sold 5.9 million cars and trucks last year, including 36,928 hybrids.

Automakers want to cut emissions as governments tighten pollution rules, and some rivals such as General Motors Corp. are focusing on fuel cells rather than hybrids. Toyota is the only automaker capable of soon building enough hybrids to overcome the current $3,000-a-vehicle cost disadvantage against traditional cars and trucks, said Fitch Ratings analyst Chris Struve.

"The only way to bring costs down is to increase production," said Struve, who is based in Chicago and studies the effect of new technology and environmental rules on automakers. "If they can pull it off, their fuel economy would be beautiful and they'd never have to worry about emissions."

The Prius, sold in the U.S., Japan and Europe, combines an internal-combustion engine and an electric motor and gets about 50 miles per gallon of gasoline. Toyota also sells hybrid models of the Crown sedan, Estima minivan and Coaster bus in Japan. Honda Motor Co. is the only other automaker to sell gasoline-electric models, with the two-seat Insight and a version of the Civic car.

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