On the heels of a Toyota, announcement of a retail plug-in hybrid by 2010 and the complete hybridization of its line beginning in 2020, a Toyota representative attempted to bring people's expectations about such vehicles more in line with reality.

Bill Reinert, national manager of the advanced technology group for Toyota Motor Sales, USA, spoke to Automotive News while participating in a Washington conference on plug-in vehicles.

"When we see the [claims of] 100 mile-per-gallon stuff, not everybody's going to get 100 miles per gallon," said Reinert, pointing out that real-life driving with rapid accelerations for such moves as entering a freeway, will dramatically reduce the range of a plug-in vehicle.

In theory, a plug-in hybrid would have the benefit of a stronger batter pack than the current generation of hybrids and would operate for longer periods of time after recharging from a regular household outlet.

Advocates of the technology insist that any such vehicle that can handle a 40-mile-per-day range would be sufficient to the daily needs of average driver and would return a performance equivalent with 100 mpg.

Reinert pointed out, that not all the claims about performance on the first generation of hybrids panned out in real life and cautioned against expecting too much of the first plug-ins to appear on the market.