2010 Toyota Prius Adds Muscle at Expense of Fuel Efficiency
Toyota’s yet-to-be-unveiled 2010 Prius will have a bigger engine and a higher top speed, but improvements to CO2 emissions and fuel efficiency will take a backseat.
While the company has plans for a hyper-efficient plug-in version of the Prius by 2011, the standard model will make relatively few upgrades to its environmentally-friendly features. “It will be cleaner, with CO2 emissions below 100gm per kilometer,” said Miguel Fonseca, a Toyota managing director. “We could have gone lower but, instead, we have chosen to give the Prius better performance.”
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The engine will grow from 1.5 to 1.8 liters, the top speed could increase from 106 to 120 mph, and the car will measure a few inches longer and an inch wider. A Toyota spokesperson said the changes were to increase the vehicle’s mass-market appeal, but with the changing economy and increased concern for the environment, it remains to be seen whether top speed will be among buyers’ concerns.
Now that nearly every car company has embraced hybrid technology, Toyota could soon face steep competition—take the recently-announced Chevy Volt, for instance. Instead of looking to solidify the Prius’ status as the most fuel-efficient hybrid available, they’ve decided to adopt an unfortunate bigger-is-better mentality.
Photo Credit: Lorentey on Flickr under Creative Commons license.
“I see that Felsinger obviously is long on Toyota stock - this move by Toyota is outrageous and unprecedented. It’s obvious that since the misfortunes to GM, Toyota is taking the opportunity to flood the market with gas guzzling SUVs and trucks,
and using the now-not-too-efficient Prius as greenwashing to hide the raping of American consumers. Felsinger should be ashamed to be an obvious shill for this rapacious and overly profitable
corporation. Felsinger is now on my shit list. He deserves it.”
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lowut? love a good hillbilly rant.
LOL… teh intarwebs win here.
The 1.8 matches (or beats, depends on your speed) the 1.5 on the highway. The Prius already does really well in the city due to the electric system. It’s an improvement all around.
I think you people just want to bitch about change in general. They could make it emit only unicorn farts and rainbows from the tailpipe and you’d bitch about it.
Stoooopid. Why would anybody want to go over 100mph in a car with 12-inch, over-pressurized tires?
Message to Toyota: Put a sports car body on a Prius power train.
the prius is fast enough already period. Make the car bigger and feel more substantial is all they need to do.
so at 1.8L displacement instead of a Yaris hybrid it becomes a Corolla hybrid? Um, boo?
Toyota did the same thing with the Scion xB - bigger engine, bigger size and worse gas mileage.
Apparently, no one responding to this article has driven a Prius. I rented one for two weeks and was very disappointed in how it actually drove.
The problem is the standing start. The electric motor alone won’t get the car moving quickly, so it has to start the gas engine. Starting the engine causes an annoying delay that makes me want to give it even more gas, lowering fuel economy.
I don’t think the car needs a *lot* more power, but as it stands, the Prius powertrain just doesn’t feel that well-engineered. That’s what Toyota’s trying to fix.
At highway speeds, I didn’t have any particular complaints. Wasn’t a speed demon, but it wasn’t bad.
From where did you get your false info??
The 2010 Prius has an EPA rating of 50MPG