TOKYO – Toyota lowered its global sales target for 2009 to 9.7 million vehicles on Thursday, down from an earlier 10.4 million vehicles, blaming “tough times,” caused by rising material costs, a slowing U.S. market and soaring gas prices.

Toyota Motor Corp. has already trimmed its global vehicle sales forecast for this year to 9.5 million vehicles from the previous 9.85 million.

President Katsuaki Watanabe said Japan's biggest automaker will continue to boost growth by focusing on gas-electric hybrids as a core strategy, and offsetting declining U.S. and European demand with sales in emerging economies.

As part of the new plan, Toyota will start making the Prius hybrid in the U.S., at its Mississippi plant, to meet growing demand for fuel-efficient models, while scaling down production of trucks and other gas-guzzlers there.

Toyota now makes the Prius in Japan and China, though it makes other hybrid models in the U.S.

“We see the slowdown in the U.S. market as a fundamental change,” he told reporters at a Tokyo hotel.

To answer growing concerns about the environment as well as gas bills, Toyota will speed up the development of fuel-efficient vehicles, Watanabe said.

Toyota had previously promised the plug-in hybrid for sometime in 2010, but Watanabe said it will be now brought out for rental car fleets by the end of 2009.

Gas-electric hybrids like the Prius deliver better mileage by switching between a gas engine and electric motor, and a plug-in hybrid can travel longer as an electric vehicle, using less gasoline.

Watanabe said Toyota is also planning to produce a next-generation electric vehicle in the early 2010s.