Toyota has unveiled the ‘newest kid on the hybrid block‘ – the Toyota FT-CH Hybrid at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show. This new hybrid vehicle is slotted right under the current version of the Toyota Prius, and could be seen as Toyota’s extension of the Prius brand. In an apparent effort to capitalize on the Prius name-tag, Toyota has announced that they will launch eight all-new hybrid vehicle models over the next few years, and that they hope to sell over a million hybrid models during the same time frame.

The CH in Toyota FT-CH stands for “Compact Hybrid” – which makes sense considering that the FT-CH will come 22 inches shorter (153 inch total length) and an inch narrower (68.5 inch total width) than the current Toyota Prius. The reduced dimensions equates to a lower curb weight and better fuel efficiency than the Prius. With the Prius supposedly making around 50 mpg, we could be looking at something north of that for the Toyota FT-CH.

The FT-CH has been designed at Toyota’s European Design and Development Center in Nice, France, and is targetted at the younger crowd – the so called ‘8-bit’ crowd. Autoweek describes the design as “Drawing inspiration from eight-bit video games of the 1980s, designers gave the concept a fun, innovative and colorful look.”.

Currently a concept, no one’s for sure right now if the Toyota FT-CH will ever make it to the production lines. However if it ever does, it could easily be one of the nicest add-on’s the Prius brand could have with its (expected) lower price tag and ‘fun’ factor.