It will be years before demand for hybrid cars in the United States and Europe is big enough for battery manufacturers to make money from that business, but electric cars are nevertheless poised to dominate the market for greener vehicles, the world's largest car battery maker said on Tuesday.



Johnson Controls Inc's hybrid battery business will be profitable 'within five years,' according to its president, Alex Molinaroli. He added that demand for fuel-sipping hybrid cars, while strong, must get much bigger before the company's investment in the technology will pay off.



'It's very expensive to be in this,' Molinaroli said at the Reuters Global Environment Summit. 'It's the opportunity to spend money, not make money today.'



The premium consumers must pay for hybrid cars has prevented them from gaining a bigger share of the overall auto market, and Molinaroli said global financial turmoil would weaken demand for both traditional and hybrid vehicles.



'If you are a consumer and you are going to buy a vehicle -- hybrid or non-hybrid -- you are going to delay your purchase,' Molinaroli said.



Last year, Johnson Controls reported revenue of about $4.3 billion from batteries, though very little of that has come from the developing hybrid battery business. Johnson Controls' Power Solutions unit's plan for profitability assumes that hybrid electric cars will make up 6 percent of the U.S. and Western European auto markets by 2020.



Automakers from Detroit's General Motors Corp to Japan's Toyota Motor Corp are developing electric cars for the United States, where soaring pump prices have increased consumer demand for cleaner, gas-sipping vehicles such as Toyota's popular Prius hybrid.