Tokyo, 19 July 2008: According to a report from a leading Japanese business daily, Toyota Motor Corp will be rolling out a new hybrid car in 2009. The company is planning to produce 1,00,000 units a year of the new hybrid model, at a subsidiary in southern Japan, as reported by the Nikkei business daily today.

The new car, which will be Toyota's second dedicated hybrid model after the hot-selling Prius, will have a 2-litre to 2.5-litre engine and will be sold under the company's luxury 'Lexus' brandname.

The subsidiary company, Toyota Motor Kyushu Inc, in Fukuoka prefecture, currently builds a gasoline-electric hybrid version of the Toyota Harrier SUV, sold as the Lexus RX outside Japan, as well as the Highlander SUV.

Hit by sinking demand for fuel-thirsty SUVs and pickup trucks, Toyota this month announced a big overhaul of its North American manufacturing structure which included a plan to build the Highlander at a truck factory in Indiana from late 2009.

Toyota Motor Kyushu will make adjustments to its factory to switch production from the North America-bound Highlander to the new hybrid model, the Nikkei said.

Toyota aims to sell at least 1 million hybrid vehicles annually in the early part of the next decade - more than double what it sold last year.

Toyota has said it would showcase a new hybrid model under both the Toyota and Lexus brand names at the annual Detroit Auto Show next January.