By Kevin Krolicki and Jui Chakravorty, Reuters

Toyota Motor Corp, likely to claim the title of world's biggest automaker later this month from General Motors Corp, on Monday threw down the gauntlet to GM in a race for the next "green" car.

In the process, Toyota — the world leader in popular gas-electric hybrids like the Prius sedan — may have short-circuited GM's year-old effort to bring the first "plug in" electric cars to market.

"We welcome competition because that is how new technology is developed for consumers," Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe told reporters at the Detroit Auto Show Monday. "But we don't want to lose."

Watanabe announced that Toyota will market a test fleet of rechargeable hybrid vehicles to companies or government agencies by the end of 2010.

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