Toyota is aiming to offer a hybrid-powered version of every one of its passenger cars by the end of next decade.
Currently the brand only offers one hybrid – the upper medium Prius – but it’s expected that the lower medium Auris will be the next in 2010. The Yaris should then offer a supermini version in 2011.
The company will then look to offer a hybrid version with every all-new model. It is expected the brand’s whole range will offer the option of a petrol hybrid powertrain within 11 years.
Toyota is hoping to take on the smaller, and cheaper, hybrids offered by rival Honda. The hybrid Auris would compete with the lower medium Honda Insight, while the Yaris would challenge the Jazz hybrid, which is planned for release by 2012. The lack of a sports orientated car in the firm’s range means there will be no rival for the Honda CRZ, however, which is due in spring 2010.
Toyota has ruled out the possibility of putting a diesel hybrid into any of its passenger vehicles, with a spokesman saying it is “too expensive to put a diesel hybrid in a passenger car”, adding that the financial margins involved were too tight for it to be plausible.
The brand does already make a diesel electric engine, but this is limited to trucks in Japan, and there are no plans to make a smaller version. A spokesman for the brand also ruled out the use of diesel hybrids in a passenger car on the basis of refinement.
Peugeot is expected to be the first brand to release a diesel hybrid, with the 3008 expected to come with the technology in early 2011.
