Earlier this summer Toyota announced plans to start testing some plug-in versions of the Prius in Japan. That announcement was quickly followed by two of the PHEV Priuses coming to California and now the program is hopping another ocean. Following up on the rumors circulating over the weekend, European energy company EDF has struck a deal with Toyota to test some of the plug-in hybrids in France.

Toyota and EDF have collaborated on a charging and billing system that can be used with public charging stations. The Priuses to be tested in EDF's fleet will be equipped with the new system and will start running this fall. The press release from Toyota Europe is after the jump.

[Source: Toyota]

As I mentioned earlier today, the FREEDOM Act language regarding tax incentives for Americans looking to convert their hybrids to plug-in versions was stripped out of the energy bill that ended up passing in the U.S. Senate. Toyota made their claim for why PHEVs are a bad idea, and in my inbox today was the newsletter from the EDTA, and it included this bit from EDTA President Brian Wynne regarding the reason that part of the bill was removed:

"Late last week, the Senate passed its energy bill after defeating a carefully crafted tax package, which contained a plug-in electric drive vehicle credit that EDTA played a major role in putting together. The cause of this setback had nothing to do with electric drive; rather, it was the controversial tax provisions paying for the tax package that proved to be the insurmountable hurdle that day. The effort is far from over, though, and we are continuing to promote our tax priorities in both Houses and on both sides of the aisle."

So, a lot of those technical reasons that Toyota brought up in their letter to the Senate might not hold as much water as they'd hoped. CalCars wil be happy, and where does this leave Toyota?

[Source: EDTA]