Auto Trader

Speaking earlier this week Toyota Motor Chairman Hiroshi Okuda said the company was "making money already" from the Prius, the first hybrid vehicle to enter mass production.

Received wisdom is that the Prius and its counterpart the Honda Insight are so technologically advanced and sell in such small numbers that they are more about PR than profit but Toyota is aiming for hybrid sales of 300,000 a year by 2005. It sells a number of other hybrid models in Japan and earlier this month signed a deal to collaborate with Nissan on hybrid technology. Honda will launch a Civic-based hybrid next year.

Like most manufacturers, Toyota is displaying a fuel cell vehicle at the Paris Motor Show but Mr Okuda told the FT that, when the energy and pollution of the extraction of the hydrogen needed to power a fuel cell was included, the "(oil) well to wheel" efficiency of hybrid vehicles was better than even the best current fuel cells.