Toyota launches Lexus with hybrid engine

TOKYO, March 17 (UPI) -- Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. has unveiled the Lexus GS450h, the first hybrid version of its Lexus sedan.

Toyota's GS450h, priced between $58,000 and $66,000, is powered by the world's first hybrid system designed especially for rear-wheel-drive cars, giving them greater fuel efficiency, low emissions and high power, the Japan Times reported Friday.

"While (the hybrid Lexus) has power equivalent to that of a 4.5-liter engine, it boasts high fuel efficiency, equal to that of a 2-liter engine," Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe told reporters in Tokyo. "We sought to reduce carbon dioxide (emissions) and make the exhaust gas cleaner."

The GS450h is Toyota's first luxury car with a hybrid engine for mass production. Japan's top automaker launched three remodeled Lexus vehicles, priced between $33,000 and $58,000, in the domestic market last August.

Toyota plans to start selling the sedan in North America, Europe and Oceania later this year and aims to sell 5,700 units worldwide in 2006, the newspaper reported.