As the hybrid picks up speed, the gasoline engine comes on. When decelerating before a stop, the gas engine switches off and the electric motor takes over again. In a test drive of the hybrid, the switching back and forth between the electric motor and the gasoline engine was smooth and virtually imperceptible. Toyota engineers are working to make the switching even more transparent than it was in the prototypes recently demonstrated. The Toyota hybrid does not require recharging, since the gasoline engine charges the battery while the car is running.
Additional electricity is stored in the battery.
Toyota plans to sell at least 1,000 hybrids a year in Japan. It has no immediate plans for sales elsewhere, including the United States, although the car would meet California's strict emissions requirements. The hybrid is part of Toyota's publicly stated strategy to establish itself as the producer of the world's safest and most environmentally friendly cars. Still, in an uncharacteristic move at the normally secretive company, Toyota has been showing its future technology to the press. In addition to the hybrid, Toyota will introduce an electric RAV4 sport utility vehicle this fall in the United States and Japan.