TOKYO- Toyota Motor Corp. will begin selling "affordable" plug-inhybrid carsin 2011, upping the ante on General Motors and Nissan Motoras they aimto take the lead in the field of rechargeable cars.
Toyota'sfirstplug-in model, the Prius Plug-In Hybrid (PHV), adds an externalchargingfunction and more batteries to the popular Prius toenablelonger-distance driving on electricity alone.
Because itcanalso run on gasoline, plug-in hybrids - such as GM's upcoming Voltduefor sale next year - eliminate the "range anxiety" seen as one ofthemain shortcomings of battery-powered pure electric cars.
ThePriusPHV can travel 23.4 kilometres using only the electric motor,making ashort commute possible on zero emissions, Toyota said. On afull chargeand full tank of gas, the car could theoretically travel1,400 km, itsaid.
Nissan's pure electric Leaf car due for sale in 2010 has a range of 160 km on a single charge.
Toyota,theworld's biggest automaker and by far the top seller ofgasoline-electrichybrid cars, said it would aim to sell "several tensof thousands" ofplug-in hybrid cars to the general public in an"affordable" price range.
Executivevice-president TakeshiUchiyamada, Toyota's R&D chief and father ofthe original Prius,declined to specify a price range but indicated itwould likely be farcheaper than $33,770 U.S.
"Nowadays in theUnited States,they sell after-market kits for about 1 million yen($11,260)" toconvert a hybrid car into a plug-in, he told apresentation on Monday."Of course, we would have to do much better thanthat as a massproducer."
The third-generation Prius starts at $22,400 in the U.S.
Uchiyamada said he expects the mass-produced plug-in cars - which may not take the shape of the Prius - to be sold globally.
TheChevroletVolt, on track to become the first mass-market plug-in hybridin theUnited States, could cost as much as $40,000 before a $7,500consumertax credit is applied, GM has said. The U.S. automaker expectsto sellabout 10,000 Volts in the first year of production and 60,000in itssecond full year.
Toyota will begin leasing itsPrius PHV globallythis month, starting with 100 to the French city ofStrasbourg. Bymid-2010, it will have about 600 on lease, mostly togovernments andbusinesses in Japan, the United States and Europe.
"Thearrival ofthese new generation plug-in hybrid vehicles in our urbanlandscape willopen a new chapter in our transport policy," StrasbourgMayor RolandRies said at a hand-over ceremony in Tokyo.
Strasbourg has 300 recharging stations and has been a leader in efforts for sustainable mobility.
ThePriusPHV would be Toyota's first to employ lithium-ion batteries,which arecostly but can store more energy than the nickel-metalhydride batteriesused in most gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles today.
ThePriusPHV can reach a top speed of 100 km/h in the electric motor modeandgets a combined EV and hybrid mileage of 57 km/litre. It emits only59grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre, as measured under Europeanrules.
Despitecarrying about 120 kilograms of extrabatteries, the Prius PHV getsJapanese listed mileage of 30.6 km/litrein hybrid-only mode, slightlybetter than the regular Prius because thebigger battery can moreefficiently capture lost energy during brakingand coasting, Uchiyamadasaid.
Toyota said the Prius PHVcould halve the running cost oftraveling 30 km compared with a regularPrius when using cheaper,nighttime electricity. The car can be fullycharged in about 100 minutesat 200 Volts and three hours at 100 Volts.
GM'sVolt is designedto run for 40 miles on a single battery charge. UnlikeToyota'stwo-motor series parallel hybrid system, GM uses aconventional engineto generate electricity to power the motor when thebattery is empty.