Toyota has joined forced with EDF Energy in France to test its plug-in hybrid vehicles, as part of an effort to expand the project already underway in the UK and Japan.

Toyota has deftly positioned itself as the number one authority on hybrid vehicles, but with the Honda Insight and others also making headway, the Japanese giant is keen to keep the high ground in new hybrid technologies.

As part of the project, Toyota will roll out 100 plug-in hybrid Priuses through lease arrangements with companies in Strasbourg, where EDF Energy will test its charging station infrastructure.

The project, which will run for three years, begins in late 2009.  Toyota has made no official announcement on when we can expect to see its plug-in hybrids on the market, but it would obviously be no earlier than 2012.  Without the appropriate charging infrastructure in place, we may never see it at all.