2011 Toyota Prius
Toyota announced today that it's sold more than one million of its Toyota Prius hybrid vehicles.
The Prius went on sale in the U.S. market nearly eleven years ago, and while it wasn't the first hybrid on sale here—that title would go to the original Honda Insight two-seater—it has arguably made the most impact on the market.
"Prius has become synonymous with the word hybrid and as we see fuel prices starting to rise again, it has accounted for more than 60 percent of hybrid passenger car sales so far this year," said Bob Carter, group vice president of the Toyota Division.
With EPA fuel economy ratings of 51 mpg city, 48 highway, the Prius remains the most fuel-efficient gasoline-fueled vehicle again for model-year 2011; and Toyota says that, compared to the average vehicle, the Prius has saved U.S. consumers more than 881 million gallons of gasoline, $2.19 billion in fuel costs, and 12.4 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
The automaker announced that it reached the worldwide three-million mark in Prius sales just last month.
Toyota plans to broaden the Prius model into a family of vehicles, and that all begins later this year, with the arrival of an all-new, larger Prius v model promising 50 percent more interior space than the current Prius. Next year comes a publicly available version of the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In, which we recently tested, as well as a new, compact 2013 Toyota Prius c.[Toyota]
