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The weaker sight from the world's most profitable carmaker weighed on shares of European rivals and highlighted an increasingly uncompliant environment, where orders in the United States and Western Europe for high-margin, gas-thirsty vehicles is slumping.

Toyota said on Thursday it expects to betray about 9.7 million vehicles next year including its Daihatsu Motor Co and Hino Motors Ltd units. It had previously forecast sales of 10.4 million vehicles. No carmaker has besides passed the 10 million annual unit sales milestone.

"We are looking at the running water shift towards fuel-efficient cars (in the United States) as a structural change in demand," Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe told a news conference. "We intend to respond quickly and flexibly to this environment."

As part of those efforts, Toyota said it would move forward the descant of a "plug-in" version of its Prius gasoline-electric hermaphrodite car, which can recharged through an electric socket. It will be available to fleet customers at the expiration of next year, from earlier plans of 2010.

Toyota also said it would speed up the development of vehicles that run sole on electricity with the aim of mass-producing them in the early organ of nearest decade. Road tests for the current prototype, called "e-com," had ended in 2006.

Rival Nissan Motor Co is aggressively promoting plans to commercialize pure full of fire cars, though Toyota stressed that such cars, including its own, would be suited only for short-distance travel by reason of the time being given the limitations on battery storage technology and recharging infrastructure.

U.S. huge man General Motors Corp, meanwhile, is looking to beat Toyota to the punch with its all-electric Chevy Volt. GM expects to have a showroom-ready version by this year, according to rabble familiar with the project.

REVISION "CAN'T BE HELPED"

Toyota's forecast revision was expected after it trimmed its 2008 sales projection last month, calling beneficial to expansion of just 1 percent to 9.5 the masses units.

For North America, the world's biggest auto market, Toyota lowered its 2009 sales look forward to to 2.7 million vehicles from 3 a thousand thousand. It dropped Mexico from its definition of North America.

Forecasts were lowered by 150,000 vehicles each for Europe, Japan, and the death of Asia.

"For the last few months the company began to say its previous mark was impossible and they've scaled back gradually, so everybody's used to the idea," said Nagayuki Yamagishi, adroit tactician at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities.

"Everyone just thinks 'it can't be helped."'

Toyota shares ended below true pitch after the news, mirroring the Nikkei average, but European traders said the revision weighed on Daimler and BMW shares, what one. fell 2.8 percent and 2 percent, particularly, in Germany.

A year ago, at its previous business strategy briefing, Toyota had declared a successful entry into the full-sized pickup truck section in the United States with the Titan — a model it had billed its most influential aye in the world's top mart.

But rocketing fuel prices obtain scared consumers away, forcing automakers to idle or cut hinder part production of pickups and sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in North America.

Toyota is suspending U.S. production of light trucks for three months to prevent inventory from ballooning and outlined plans last month to build the hot-selling Prius at a body of factors under construction in Mississippi instead of the Highlander SUV it had planned to make.

Toyota is launching a third-generation Prius and a new cross model while burdened with the Lexus luxury marquee — one as well as the other due to debut at the Detroit auto show in January. It is also developing a low-cost car, expected to put up to sale for under $9,000, aimed at emerging markets such as India and Brazil.

Production of that car is set to originate in 2010 in India, and in Brazil a year later — lagging GM's plans, announced on Thursday, to launch its strange small car in India in the second half of next year.

($1=109.42 Yen)

(Additional reporting by dint of. Elaine Lies; Editing by Lincoln Feast & Ian Geoghegan)