What's with toyota's infatuation with hybrid's

For the american market even honda is talking about diesel,so also VW,mercedes,nissan and almost all the automobile manufacturers including mitsubishi but toyota seems to be standing out of the crowd.They are gambling big time on hybrids. So now we have a 100,000 lexus hybrid.Ford too seems to have taken a leaf out of toyota's books and is saying no diesel for america.

Is this gambling by toyota with regards to hybrids worthwhile,especially since for the moment atleast there does not seem to be any major advantage for the hybrids over diesel engines.

Not so long ago the japanese where claiming technical superiority with respect to their engines namely petrol engines.They where more fuel efficient,quieter ,refined ,more fuel efficient than their counterparts from the other side of the world.But common rail engines seem to just have changed the equations.Just have a look at the ford common rail engine we have here,so also the swift diesel and now compare it with the only japanese diesel we have so far in the mass market the toyota innova and suddenly the balance seems to have changed so much so that actually these diesel's seem to be a better option than the japanese manufacturer's petrol engines[Kindly correct me if I am wrong].
To be fair to the japs they have not dished out their complete arsenal of diesel's in India but the technical superiority part of their engines is under some serious threat.