Lexus' dedicated hybrid model due next year

Yesterday Toyota Chief Katsuaki Watanabe revealed Toyota’s new green offensive to reporters at the Detroit Auto Show. Key to the carmaker’s plans, as described by Watanabe, is the launch of several new hybrid only models with the first cars scheduled to hit showrooms next year.

"Next year here in Detroit, we will expand our conventional hybrid line-up by staging world premiers of two all-new, dedicated hybrids, one for Toyota and one for Lexus," Watanabe told reporters. These new cars will be conventional hybrids, similar to the current Prius, in which an electric motor works in tandem with an internal combustion petrol engine.

We’ll have to wait until 2010 at the earliest to see the first Toyota plug-in hybrids hit the roads. Watanabe promised that by the end of the decade Toyota will deliver a "significant fleet" of plug-in hybrids powered by lithium-ion batteries, reports Automotive News. You may recall officials originally claimed current lithium-ion technology was too dangerous for use in hybrid vehicles but it appears development work on the advanced battery systems is underway at Toyota’s R&D labs.