Toyota denied a report quoting a former executive that the Japanese government had underwritten the development of the Prius hybrid.
Toyota Motor Corp. denied on Wednesday it had received any funding from the Japanese government to develop its hit Prius gas-electric hybrid car.

Japan’s top automaker rejected a March 24 Business Week report that quoted Jim Press, vice chairman and president of Chrysler LLC and a former board member at Toyota, as saying, “The Japanese government paid for 100 percent of the development of the battery and hybrid system that went into the Toyota Prius.”

Press worked for 37 years at Toyota, including the years of research for the Prius, which sent on sale 10 years ago. He left Toyota for Chrysler last September