No Diesel Hybrid Powertrain for Tundra Pickup, reports pickuptruck.com

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Wired Magazine is quoting Toyota Motor Corporation President Katsuaki Watanabe as saying the company will not offer a diesel hybrid version of the Tundra full-size pickup because the cost of pairing a diesel engine with electric motors would make the truck "prohibitively expensive".

These comments echo an earlier statement from General Motors' Gary White, vice president and vehicle line executive for GM full-size trucks.

Mr. White told PickupTruck.com in October 2007 that hybrids and diesels are independently expensive powertrains to produce. Combining the two would likely not yield high enough fuel economy improvements to make it economically worthwhile to offer a diesel-electric hybrid truck.

Interestingly, Toyota's and GM's comments are contradicted by India's Mahindra & Mahindra, which intends to sell a diesel hybrid version of its upcoming Appalachian mid-size pickup in the United States by 2010.



Source: Pickuptruck.com  

This is just jabber-jaw-speak for "we don't intend to produce a diesel-hybrid until you buy our gas-hybrids in volume". Five dollar-a-gallon gas and significantly slower truck sales will argue back. So Toyota and GM are out. I suspect Chrysler will be the first to offer a diesel-hybrid. They will do it for a few reasons. One, they will do it for title of most advanced truck. Two, having the lowest average truck fuel economy will drive the desire for improvement. Three, they have already done prior development (a.k.a. Contractor's Special).