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Special Reportfull coverage America's cheapest gas is in this town Summer drivers to get a break on gas Why gas prices are likely to keep climbing You'll pay a little less for gas this summer Expect relief from record February gas prices Why gas prices are rising

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Ford Motor Co. plans to speed up its hybrid strategy and offer the fuel-efficient gas-electric cars on half its models in the next five years, according to a published report.

Ford Chairman and CEO William Ford Jr. announced the plan Wednesday.

Ford plans to ramp up hybrid production from several thousand this year to 250,000 by 2010. The company also plans to increase the number of flexible fuel vehicles, which can run on either pure gasoline or gasoline blended with ethanol, too 280,000 units by 2006.

Ford started selling its first hybrid vehicle, a version of its compact sport/utility vehicle Escape, in August 2004, and a hybrid version of its twin, the Mercury Mariner, in July this year, a year earlier than originally planned.

William Ford has been a longtime champion of environmental causes, but the nation's No. 2 auto manufacturer's main source of profit in recent years has been pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles that get poor gas mileage. But record gasoline prices and concerns that oil prices could stay high in the long term have auto manufacturers and car buyers taking a closer look at fuel economy of vehicles.

The U.S. auto manufacturers have trailed their Japanese counterparts in development and sales of hybrid vehicles.

Even with the new hybrid push by Ford, it won't necessarily close the gap with competitors such as Toyota Motor Co., which announced at the Frankfurt auto show last week that it intends to offer hybrid versions of all of its models, although it did not give a time frame to reach that target. Toyota also said it expects to make as many as 400,000 hybrid vehicles in 2006.

Ford Chief Operating Officer Jim Padilla complained to reporters Tuesday that it could be offering more hybrid vehicles if it weren't for the shortage of specialized components, and he blamed some Japanese auto manufacturers for the shortage.

"It is a supply issue, and it's supply of several technologies," Padilla said at the Reuters Summit in Detroit. "The Japanese have shown a little bit of a predatory approach."

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