Stuttgart, Germany - Toyota plans to extend hybrid-drive throughout the range to include its smallest car, the Aygo city runabout.
The announcement was made by development chief Mitsuhisa Kato in an interview with the German car journal auto, motor und sport.
Petrol-electric versions of the mid-range Prius and smaller Yaris are already available but the brand's city cars have so far not benefited from the green technology.
“Our goal in the mid-term is to offer a hybrid model in all the model segments. Yet we must get the costs down further in order to put this technology into the smallest cars,” said Kato.
The engineer said he was convinced that hybrids - which use an internal combustion engine mated to an electric motor - were more likely to prevail than all-electric cars or those powered by electricity from hydrogen fuel cells.
“For most applications the hybrid drivetrain is the best,” said the Toyota man. “Whenever we manage to increase the efficiency of the individual components of our hybrid systems we see knock-on benefits in the field of electric cars and those powered by conventional internal combustion engines.”
Toyota's Prius saloon spearheaded consumer acceptance of petrol-electric cars and its global popularity helped make the term “hybrid” a household world. A fourth-generation Prius is slated for introduction in 2015.
Sapa-dpa