By Alan Ohnsman and Gopal Ratnam

March 14 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., whose Prius is the world's best-selling gasoline-electric car, may also offer hybrids able to run on fuel that's mostly ethanol.

Toyota is studying a so-called flex-fuel hybrid, Jim Press, the Japanese automaker's North American president, said today in Washington. He didn't specify a model or when such a vehicle would go on sale.

``A hybrid that uses ethanol is a pretty good solution,'' Press said in an interview after testifying before Congress on fuel-economy standards. ``Those are the kinds of things we need to consider.''

A flex-fuel hybrid would expand Toyota's offerings of models that aren't powered exclusively by gasoline. Toyota and Honda Motor Co. are the only large automakers in the U.S. that don't sell vehicles able to run on E85, a fuel that's 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.

Toyota, the world's second-largest automaker, said in January it would sell a flex-fuel version of its Tundra pickup truck able to run on E85 by 2009.

General Motors Corp. and other U.S.-based carmakers told Congress today they favor more federal support for ethanol and bio-fuels as a way to cut reliance on imported oil, rather than boost U.S. fuel-economy standards. Toyota City, Japan-based Toyota was the only company to say it doesn't oppose stricter corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, rules.

GM is doubling its annual output of E85-capable vehicles to 800,000 by 2010. Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG have said they each will produce more than 500,000 flex-fuel vehicles by that year.

Toyota's American depositary receipts fell 77 cents to $129.98 at 4:30 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They have fallen 3.2 percent this year.