TOYOTA CITY, Japan - Satoshi Ogiso doesn't look or act like a brash automobile executive. With an ill-fitting suit and spiky hairdo, his hands flutter bashfully across his face as he talks of "difficulties," "challenges" and "problems."

The 45-year-old engineer refuses to brag about his accomplishments. But as chief engineer of the hybrid Prius, Ogiso has helped Toyota revolutionize the auto industry.

By making huge long-term investments in gas-saving technologies that U.S. automakers pooh-poohed, Toyota has proved that corporate environmental consciousness can be wildly profitable.

"What has made this revolution possible is that Toyota is a company with a focus on technology, because we think innovation is the future of our company," Ogiso said in an interview. "So we cannot fall behind. We are trying very hard, and it is very difficult."

Ogiso's humility is typical of Toyota. Its world headquarters in Toyota City, a quiet industrial city 150 miles southwest of Tokyo, has a deceptively modest demeanor: The nondescript, 13-story building looks like it might house a midsize insurance firm in any American suburb.

For years, Toyota recorded solid growth because of its dependable, fuel-efficient cars such as the Camry. Then, in the 1990s, while U.S. automakers were building bigger and bigger SUVs and trucks, Toyota threw itself into hybrid gasoline-electric research, investing more than $1 billion in the then-little-known field.

Executives at GM, Ford and Daimler-Chrysler derided the hybrids as money-losers and lagged in producing their own models. Toyota pressed ahead, and its resulting hybrids - the Prius, the Highlander SUV and Lexus RX400h, as well as a half-dozen other hybrid models sold only in Japan - now dominate the market, accounting for about 80 percent of U.S. hybrid sales.

Hybrids make up only 3 percent of Toyota's overall world sales, but the buzz resulting from their success has added to Toyota's public image as a trend leader.

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