Post-Peak: The 2020 Toyota Prius Limited

The 2020 Toyota Prius Limited.

Eight years ago, the Toyota Prius was on a roll.  Upwards of 200,000 copies sold in 2012.  Last year?  Just under 70,000.  And that figure is for the "Prius family", which includes the Prius Prime and the now-discontinued Prius C.  Oh, yeah---and that just under 70,000 figure is off 20% from 2018.

Prime Time: The 2017 Toyota Prius Prime Advanced

The 2017 Toyota Prius Prime.

With hybrid sales in general---and the Prius' in particular---down, it might seem like dark days for this segment.  But the Toyota Prius Prime is a brilliant vehicle.

Beauty Is Only Skin Deep: The 2017 Toyota Prius Four Touring

The 2017 Toyota Prius Four Touring.

It is the best Prius ever.  And it may ultimately be considered a failure.

A paradox which I shall explain.

And Now For Something Completely Different: The 2016 Toyota Prius Two Eco

The 2016 Toyota Prius Two Eco.

Let's pretend that you run a carmaker, one of the world's largest.  You are known for making utterly reliable automobiles and for playing it a bit safe when it comes to changing those automobiles.  You also make the most popular hybrid automobile on earth.  It is the car most people think of when hearing the word hybrid.  Apart from the first generation, which people thought was odd-looking despite a mostly conventional sedan shape, your best-selling hybrid has benefitted from evolutionary thinking over the past two decades.  Moving forward, but not taking big risks.

And then one day, you decide to roll the dice.  Push the envelope. Instead of another smoothing of the existing design, you dare to dare.  Even the propulsion system, praised for delivering on its EPA estimate of 51 city/48 highway no longer looks good enough.  You swing for the bleachers.

Personal Best: Beating The EPA Estimates In A 2015 Toyota Prius

The 2015 Toyota Prius. 

All my previous encounters with the Toyota Prius (and there must have been more than a dozen in the seven years TireKicker has been in existence, plus another dozen in the years I was reviewing cars elsewhere) have been in what is presumed to be its natural habitat, city streets and freeways. And on its intended mission, it has excelled.  When some customers were complaining that they couldn't reach the EPA combined fuel economy estimate of 50 miles per gallon three years ago, I was getting 50.2.

Having never used it as one, I never thought of it as a highway car.

The Toyota Prius Plug-In: How To Nearly Double The Mileage of a Prius

2014 Toyota Prius Plug-In.

When the 51 miles per gallon city/48 miles per gallon highway of a standard Toyota Prius is not enough, there's a solution. The Toyota Prius Plug-In.

Where Will The Prius Price Creep Stop?

Toyota Prius.

Four and a half years ago, we reviewed a then-new 2010 Prius. Lavishly equipped, it had a base price of 25,800 and an as-tested price of $30,709.  Even then (though I didn't say it in print), I wondered at what point a Prius could be too pricey.

Just shy of two years ago, we tested a then-new 2012 Prius.  Again, a well-equipped model (known as the Four), base price $28,235, as-tested price $33,035.

Now comes another turn in a well-equipped Prius (a 2013 Five model)...and the car (essentially the same as the last two...the same generation of Prius, the same EPA estimated 51 city/48 highway) now has a base price of $30,005 and our tester rang in at.....

New Car Review: 2013 Toyota Prius V

The expansion of the Prius line seems to be paying off.  A decent number of the baby Prius C models are on the road, and if you look, you'll see quite a few of the Prius V as well.  V in this case is not a Roman numeral, it is a letter...and it stands for "versatile".

New Car Review: 2012 Toyota Prius C

The 2012 (and 2013) Toyota Prius C.

There's a school of thought that says hybrid owners like to call attention to their eco-friendly ways. If true, some say it explains why radically-styled hybrids like the Toyota Prius (well, it was radical until it became a best-seller) outsell "stealth" hybrids like the Honda Civic Hybrid, which looks...exactly like every other Honda Civic.

So what do you do when the Prius styling is beginning to become mainstream, and you're introducing a smaller, lighter, even more economical Prius...one that's less expensive, to boot? How do those people call attention to themselves?

Well, you could paint a huge number of them (including the ones sent to automotive journalists) bright orange. Toyota calls the color "Habanero". I call it "Orange Sherbet With Artificial Coloring".

New Car Review: 2012 Toyota Prius

The 2012 Toyota Prius.

Fifty. Five-Zero.

If there's a number that's caused great consternation among Prius drivers since the car was launched, it's the number 50.

That's the miles per gallon that people seem to expect to get from the now-veteran (12 years and counting) Toyota hybrid. And it's the number people rarely have gotten.

I've driven several Priuses (Priii?) a year for each of those 12 years. My personal best has been 48...a number that I would average with some regularity for the first several years. Lately, it's dropped off to 45 or 46.

But in the 2012 Toyota Prius that just left my care this morning.....I averaged 50.4 miles per gallon.

New Car Review: 2012 Toyota Prius V




The 2012 Toyota Prius V.

Toyota's expansion of the Prius into a full family of cars begins here with the Toyota Prius V.

We can hear the puzzled readers now: "Prius V? What are Prius A through U like?" No, this is V as in roman numeral for the number 5. So it's "Toyota Prius 5". Why? Because it has five doors (okay, it also stands for "Versatility", according to Toyota).

2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid Preview

The 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid.

And TireKicker's unofficial "Green Week" (yesterday, the Nissan Leaf, Tuesday the Chevrolet Volt) continues with a car you can't buy yet. In fact, you can't even put in an order yet.

The 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid goes on sale sometime in spring of 2012 in  Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. The rest of the country waits until sometime in 2013. Orders won't be taken until late this year, but Toyota, which has been running a demonstration program of 600 Prius Plug-Ins for the last couple of years, has begun putting examples into the hands of automotive journalists, and that got us a week at the wheel.

The 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid's plug-in port.

Apart from the decal along the bottom of the doors reading "Plug-In Hybrid", that little door in the left front fender is the only obvious difference between a regular Prius and the plug-in. The Priuses on the street the past decade don't need to be plugged in. The batteries aren't allowed to drain fully and recharge through braking and other regenerative activity.

Charging the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid.

So what's the point of the Plug-In? Well, the standard Prius has extremely limited capabilities running on purely electric power...get above 25 miles per hour and the gasoline engine kicks in. Drive at most one mile on electricity alone, and the same thing happens.

The Prius Plug-In will operate in EV (electric vehicle) mode "under certain conditions" up to "near freeway speeds" for "approximately 10-15 miles".

The 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid's range indicator.

That's a lot of maybes, but it does allow people going short distances at city street and freeway speeds to do it (under certain conditions) without using gasoline. And you have the gasoline engine when the battery decides the party's over.

Because the battery isn't being asked to propel the car for 35 miles like the Volt, or 100 miles like the Leaf (both those are manufacturer estimates...under certain conditions), the Prius Plug-In Hybrid needs less recharging time. And this is likely to be a big selling point. Both the Volt and Leaf need 14 hours (give or take) to fully recharge a drained battery on 120V household current. Toyota says the Prius Plug-In will do it in 3 hours. And if you use a 240V charger, that drops to an hour and a half.

With at least 60 days to go before orders are taken (maybe longer) and perhaps six months or more before the first owners take delivery, it's too soon to come to conclusions about the Prius Plug-In, its usefulness, and where it will fit in a rapidly growing field of alternative vehicle. Will the limits of its pure electric operation be too much of a compromise for green buyers? Or will its either/or concept and the promise of quick recharge be a game-changer?

VIDEO: Runaway Prius In Arizona: Driver Says He Was Standing On Brake, Toyota Says "Driver Error"

Chuck Schmeiser says he was a doubter when it came to unintended acceleration until two months ago, when he says he almost killed a parking attendant as his car lurched forward and he couldn't stop it.

He had it towed to a dealer, Toyota flew in an inspector who said it was driver error, and Chuck sold the car and bought a Honda (a new Insight, also a hybrid).

Nissan Leaf Orders Begin April 20; Price $25,280 With Tax Credit

Nissan says it will begin taking North American orders for its electric vehicle, the Leaf, on April 20.

The New York Times reports the sticker will be $32,780, but a federal tax credit gets it down to $25,280...which pretty well puts it head-to-head with the Toyota Prius.

There's also a $2,000 charger, but a federal tax credit will reimburse half of that cost.

NSFW (Not Safe For Work) Safe Driving Promos

If you told me the above was a documentary about what's behind a lot of sudden acceleration claims from Toyota Prius drivers, I wouldn't argue.

But it's actually one of several safe driving spots from Australia, targeting young, distracted drivers and being just a bit rude to cut through the clutter. See the rest here.

Mitsubishi To Triple Electric Car Output; Sell i-MiEV In U.S. In 2011

Mitsubishi says it plans to triple its electric car output over the next three years, and will sell the i-MiEV, currently on sale in Japan, here in the U.S. in 2011.

A seven-hour charge is good for up to 100 miles in the i-MiEV, according to Mitsu, but even they admit that it's a pricey vehicle...it costs double what a Prius does in Japan...the equivalent of $51,000 in today's American dollars.

Full story from AP and The Detroit News here.

Unanimous: Harrison, NY PD Agrees: Driver Error, Not Unintended Acceleration

The one on the right is the gas pedal. The one on the left is the brake pedal. The chief of the Harrison, New York Police Department says, yep...the 55 year old woman who crashed her Toyota Prius hybrid into a stone wall two weeks ago...the one he said couldn't have been driver error at the time.....was, well, driver error, the most common cause of fully investigated unintended acceleration incidents.

Captain Anthony Marracccini says his department's investigation confirms what Toyota and the NHTSA's found...that the throttle was wide-open at the time of impact...with no sign of any application of the brake.

AP story via The Detroit News here. Conversations among Prius drivers on the PriusChat forums.

Harrison, NY Police To Announce "Runaway Prius" Findings This Afternoon

Yes, we know...in fact, we told you on Friday...the NHTSA says the 55-year old woman whose Prius crashed into a wall in the NYC suburb had her foot on the gas, not the brake.

But instead of saying..."yeah...what the feds say....", the Harrison PD plans to announce their own findings this afternoon. It should be interesting, given that the police chief started by ruling out driver error at the scene two weeks ago, then amended his position to a definite maybe last week, before the NHTSA announced the results of its investigation.

The PriusChat forums are talking about it here.

UPDATE: NY Prius Case Human Error

NHTSA says the Toyota Prius driven into a wall by a 55 year old woman in Harrison, New York last week did not experience sudden acceleration. Investigators say their technical analysis of the vehicle show the throttle was open and no brakes were being applied.

That's what's called human error...and as we reported last week, that's the most common finding once investigators dig into allegations of unintended acceleration.

So it's two down as Toyota battles back against sensational stories of Priuses that allegedly defied driver attempts to stop.

Full story from The Detroit News here and discussion on the Prius Chat forums here.

CHP Releases Report On Jim "Runaway Prius" Sikes Incident

The feds and Toyota say the physical evidence indicates what Jim Sikes said happened and what he did on a San Diego County freeway on March 8 don't match, but if you're expecting the California Highway Patrol, which was first on the scene of what Sikes says was an unintended acceleration incident with his 2008 Prius, to make it three for three, stop holding your breath.

The 7-page incident report (which does confirm that Sikes "appeared to be pumping the brakes") refuses to draw conclusions as to whether what Sikes told the CHP was true or not.  CHP spokesman Brian Pennings says the agency is not trying to settle the debate and has "no evidence...that will absolutely disprove Mr. Sikes' statement".

Discussion ongoing on the Prius Chat forums.