Toyota Motor Corp. is secretly developing a vehicle that will be powered solely by solar energy in an effort to turn around its struggling business with an ecological car, according to a report from Japan's Nikkei newspaper on January 1, 2009.

Toyota is working on an electric vehicle that will get some of its power from solar cells equipped on the vehicle, and that can be recharged with electricity generated from solar panels on the roofs of homes. The automaker later hopes to develop a model totally powered by solar cells on the vehicle by solar cells mounted on the vehicle's roof, the newspaper said without citing sources.

However, it will be years before the planned vehicle will be available on the market. There are comments from official Toyota source is available at time of this report.

The challenge for any automakers is battery capacity and how much it can store. The current Toyota Prius hybrid with a 1.3 kilowatt-hour battery pack-has limited ability to store energy to power the wheels. A solar based electric car will make electric car more viable with continous battery charging and provide power without the need to find plug-ins at every parking spot.

To prove that Toyota is serious about electric car, the automaker plans to debut a small battery-electric concept car at the 2009 North American International Auto show next week.

In December 2008, Toyota posted its first loss in 70 years as the automotive world is struggling in the global recession. The raise of the Yen in foreign exchange also hurt Japanese automakers.