Toyota Prius News
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Plug-in hybrids can offer most of the environmental benefits of long-range electric cars with less cost for giant batteries or range worries. So why don't they sell better? As our esteemed former editor John Voelcker regularly noted, consumers just don't get them. As he concluded in his post wrapping up nine years of editing Green Car Reports, "...more than seven years after the debut of the Chevrolet Volt, consumers still don't understand what they are, how they work, or why they might be advantageous. Consumers 'get' hybrids: They run on gasoline, but are more efficient, somehow. And they...
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Tesla news, VW pricing, electric Harley, and Best Car To Buy: The Week in Reverse
Who will fill the role of Tesla's chairman to replace Elon Musk? Which cars made the list of finalists for Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy for 2019? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending Nov. 9, 2018. Toyota teased an...
Eric C. Evarts -
All-wheel-drive Prius, low-priced VWs, expensive Autopilot: Today's Car News
VW announces that its new electric lineup will be priced as low as gasoline vehicles. Tesla raises prices on Autopilot following a two-week free trial. Toyota hints that it may bring an all-wheel-drive Prius to market. And we look at the best deals for November. All this and more on Green Car...
Eric C. Evarts -
Toyota teases all-wheel-drive Prius for LA auto show debut
Toyota has teased what is probably an all-wheel-drive Prius, slated for introduction at the Los Angeles auto show late this month. In studying the picture the company teased, with a Prius churning through the snow, it’s hard to come to another conclusion. The automaker says in a...
Bengt Halvorson -
Toyota recalls 2016-2018 Prius models for fire risk
Toyota is launching one of its largest recalls on one of its most popular models—the Prius hybrid. Covering all Toyota Prius and Prius Plug-in models built between June 2015 and May 2018, the recall involves a wiring harness for the car's hybrid power control unit, which can chafe and start a...
Eric C. Evarts -
Follow-up: In the end, I bought a Toyota Prius Prime plug-in hybrid
In an article last fall, I reached out to the GCR readers for a suggestion for what plug-in vehicle I should buy to complement my 84-mile range 2015 Nissan LEAF. The new vehicle, my wife’s car, had to handle a 16-mile daily commute, occasional 300-mile trips to Vermont (a place of few DC fast...
John Briggs -
Rating cars isn't just about acceleration times—or at least it shouldn't be. Unlike other car rating organizations, the Automotive Science Group rates cars according to their life-cycle CO2 emissions, based on a combination of their fuel economy and weight, as a proxy for the materials consumed in their production, as well as social and economic factors in their production. This year, the Toyota Prius Prime earned the group's Best All-Around Performance title for its 133-MPGe EPA rating, its 25-mile electric range, low manufacturing footprint, and end-of-life recyclability. READ THIS...
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Toyota may let mechanics repair faulty recall inverters on older Prius
Toyota may supply independent mechanics with parts and instructions for repairing, but not replacing, potentially faulty inverters on certain 2014 Prius models, Green Car Reports has learned. According to Automotive Career Development Center founder Craig Van Batenberg, Toyota for the first time...
Aaron Cole -
Jay Leno says Toyota Prius will someday be collectible
Car collectors also gravitate towards car that represented turning points in automotive technology or design, and the Prius does that in spades.
Eric C. Evarts -
2019 Toyota Prius will be restyled to look more like Prime: report
Global sales of compact hatchbacks are hardly surging, and fuel economy for all types of vehicles is steadily improving. Even given those factors, though, the fourth-generation Toyota Prius hybrid has had an especially rough road since its launch as a 2016 model. At just 108,661 deliveries across...
John Voelcker -
For six months, one in five Prius sales has been a plug-in hybrid
A funny thing happened to Toyota Prius hybrid sales last month. Almost one in three Prius hybrids sold in the U.S. were the Prius Prime model—the one with a plug. Toyota may be the large automaker least friendly to cars that plug in, so what's that all about? DON'T MISS: Toyota Prius hybrid...
John Voelcker -
Toyota Prius recall in 2014 failed to fix problem, lawsuit says, may have cut mileage
Early in 2014, Toyota filed a voluntary recall notice with the NHTSA to fix a defect in roughly 800,000 third-generation Prius Liftback hybrids sold in the U.S. from 2010 through 2014. The company said it would make unspecified changes to software that controlled the vehicle's inverter, which...
John Voelcker -
The Toyota Prius hybrid has been its maker's "halo car" and an example of its most advanced technology for two decades. Launched from an early-1990s project to halve the fuel consumption of a small car, its hybrid-electric powertrain pioneered mass electrification of passenger cars. But the sales arc of what has grown to be a family of Prius hybrid models in the U.S. has now turned sharply down: Last year's sales were half those of 2012. DON'T MISS: 2017 Toyota Prius Prime: first drive of new plug-in hybrid Prius sales in 2000, its first model year, were just 5,562 units, and the subcompact...
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Which plug-in hybrid would you buy today if you had to? Twitter poll results
The Chevrolet Volt, now in its second generation, has long been the king of mass-market plug-in hybrids. With 53 miles of battery range, its electric performance is exceeded only by the BMW i3 REx range-extended electric hatchback. But the BMW's starting price is close to $50,000, taking it well...
John Voelcker -
Which plug-in hybrid would you buy today if you had to? Take our Twitter poll
This has been something of a plug-in hybrid month. Last week we got our first drive in the 2018 Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid, which we felt was the first affordable car with a range similar to that of the Chevrolet Volt. This week we're driving the 2018 Kia Niro Plug-In Hybrid. DON'T MISS: 2018...
John Voelcker -
Will Toyota Prius Prime outsell Chevy Volt this year?
Compared to the U.S. sales of, say, full-size pickup trucks, the monthly reports on deliveries of plug-in hybrid and battery-electric cars contain some fairly low numbers. The Ford F-Series routinely sells 80,000 a month or more, while the most any plug-in car has ever sold in the U.S. is about...
John Voelcker -
What is a Toyota Prius Hellcat? You may not want to know
The huge annual SEMA show for builders and owners of highly customized cars brings out some truly bizarre creations. Only at SEMA will you see vehicles like the one-of-a-kind PriuSRT8, a Toyota Prius with a gas-guzzling V-8 engine under its hood that effectively turns the hybrid's green credentials...
Sean Szymkowski -
2017 Toyota Prius Prime real-world gas mileage, electric range review
The 2017 Toyota Prius Prime is an automotive enigma. It proudly flaunts its eco-friendly credentials, yet its factory-rated 25 miles of electric range simply pales in comparison to the 53 miles advertised by the Chevrolet Volt. I hopped into a Titanium Glow (think beige) 2017 Prius Prime for a...
Andrew Ganz -
The Toyota Prius is undoubtedly the world's best-known hybrid car, and it's now been in production over four generations for more than 20 years. There have been more than 6 million Priuses built so far, and the U.S. represents the car's largest single market. That means lots of current Prius drivers exist on U.S. roads. DON'T MISS: 2017 Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid: gas mileage review Now, Hyundai is targeting them as potential buyers of its new Ioniq Hybrid. The five-door compact hatchback is rated at 54 mpg combined for the regular version, and 58 mpg for a special Ioniq Hybrid Blue model, beating...
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1946 Chevy pickup truck is world's oldest Prius hybrid. Really.
There are countless tales of classic cars and trucks receiving new life via parts from a completely different automobile. Whether it's an engine swap, a new platform, or a mix of a few different vehicles, project cars make for some of the greatest stories. This 1946 Chevrolet pickup truck is...
Sean Szymkowski -
How does the heat pump work in a Toyota Prius Prime plug-in hybrid?
The challenge of reducing the energy used by traditional heating systems in battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars is one automakers still grapple with today. Reduced battery range in cold temperatures, combined with batteries working overtime to heat the cabin, can produce drastic declines in...
Sean Szymkowski -
Toyota Prius One: stripped-down hybrid added at lower price
It hasn't been the greatest of years for the Toyota Prius hybrid, the Japanese carmaker's flagship product. The fourth generation hybrid hatchback debuted as a 2016 model into the teeth of continued low gasoline prices, and its radical design language apparently turned off at least some potential...
John Voelcker -
Toyota has now sold 10 million hybrids in 20 years, globally
Toyota has reached yet another significant milestone in global hybrid sales. The Japanese automaking giant has surpassed 10 million hybrid sales globally since the launch of the first-generation Prius in 1997. That total includes hybrids sold under Toyota's Lexus luxury brand, as well as sales of...
Stephen Edelstein -
Plug-in hybrids to catch on more quickly than electrics: Toyota
Toyota has been by far the most reluctant of recent converts to the idea that battery-electric vehicles might be practical and desirable. Only within the last year has the company moved past its decade-long insistence that all-electric cars were only suitable for tiny, low-range urban uses. Still...
John Voelcker