Toyota announced plans to launch a lithium-ion battery powered, plug-in hybrid car in the US by 2010. The plug-in hybrid batteries can be charged using a standard electrical outlet. The first set of cars will be available to large fleet customers. The announcement was made at the Detroit Auto show and the timing of the launch goes head to head with GM’s launch of the Volt.

Toyota Prius is the most popular hybrid car and runs on nickel metal hydride batteries which do not offer the range and power of the lithium-ion batteries.

Bloomberg news has reported that GM plans to make 60,000 Volt Electric cars for their inaugural year on the market. The plug-in hybrid concept car from GM named Volt is commonly referred to as an electric car rather than a hybrid. The design of the Volt is different from other plug-in hybrids in the sense that the car has a small 3-cylinder 1.0L Turbocharged gasoline engine which is connected to a generator to charge the batteries. This comes in handy for long distance driving and extends the range of the car to about 600 miles. The gasoline engine can be configured to run on any fuel type such as E-85, Gasoline or even Bio-diesel. There are even talks of GM introducing a hydrogen fuel cell version in the future.

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