Toyota Prius News

  • 2010 Toyota Prius high-voltage battery pack

    Like many articles, this one started with a reader question. Casey Krakowiecki wrote: I'm interested in buying a new Toyota Prius hybrid. I hope you can answer a couple of questions that will help me. (1) Are the rechargable batteries guaranteed for 8 years? If they fail at 7 years and 11 months, do you get them replaced free of charge, or are they prorated? (2) What happens to the resale value of a Prius if you want to keep it for six or seven years, knowing the cost of replacing batteries is $3,000? They're both good questions. To answer the first one, John Hanson, Toyota's National...

  • Sample used-car window sticker showing gas mileage, for a 2000 Honda Insight
    Feds To Mandate Up To 62 MPG By 2025; What Does It Mean For You?

    Two days ago, the NHTSA said that it would require annual gas-mileage improvements of somewhere between 2 and 7 percent each year between 2017 and 2025. Corporate average fuel economy requirements have already been set through 2016, an action facilitated by the Obama Administration soon after...

  • Renault Fluence Z.E. at Cannes Film Festival
    Forget The Prius, Renault Cannes Chauffeur Celebrities Too

    For most Hollywood A-List celebrities the choice of how to arrive at premieres and film festivals has been almost as big a decision as what to wear. Now Hollywood A-list celebrities have one less thing to worry about courtesy of French automaker Renault, which is providing ten of its all-electric...

  • 2011 Toyota Prius
    Will Japanese Power Problems Mean Fewer 2011 Toyota Prius Cars?

    World supplies of the highly popular Toyota Prius hybrid could be further threatened by new electric power problems in Japan. The Japanese government requested on Friday, May 6, that the Hamaoka nuclear power plant system shut down all of its reactors, which supply to the central Japanese power...

  • prototype 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid, April 2010
    Toyota Denies Prius Range To Go All Plug-In Hybrid By 2014

    In about a year’s time Toyota will launch the long-awaited plug-in hybrid version of its top-selling Prius, selling it alongside the regular version of the Prius that’s already available today. According to a new report from Japan’s Nikkei business daily, however, Toyota may make...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt
    Why Californians Need A Parking Permit To Charge Electric Cars

    No one knows the ins and outs of electric-car usage like the early adopters, especially those who've already taken delivery of a 2011 Nissan Leaf or a 2011 Chevrolet Volt. (Or both.) So when a thread on required parking permits to recharge electric cars erupted in our recent article on the opening...

  • prototype 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid, April 2010

    It's been a long time coming, but by June of next year, the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid will go on sale in the U.S. If you're eager to be one of the very first on your block to own the world's most popular hybrid vehicle--but you insist on being able to plug it into grid power--now is your moment. This Friday, April 22, is Earth Day. Toyota has chosen that day to launch its Priority Registration system for its first modern plug-in vehicle of any kind. Mind you, Priority Registration doesn't let you order a plug-in Prius. It just gets you into a queue that will have first access to the...

  • Kyle Thibaut and his grandmother in 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid (CrunchGear TV)
    Would Your Granny Buy A 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid? (Video)

    It's all about video these days. We do video here at GreenCarReports (discussing whether a 2011 Chevy Volt will save you money, for instance) and so do many other automotive sites. But we have to admit, we never thought about bringing grandmothers into the picture. Which is exactly what Kyle...

  • 2011 Toyota Prius
    U.S. Toyota Prius Sales Top One-Million Mark

    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...

  • Scout the dog, rescued by Rondout Valley Animals for Adoption, Accord, NY; photo: Jay Blotcher
    Want To Clean Up The Planet? Spay Your Pet, THEN Buy a Prius

    Cutting carbon emissions is complex. And there are a lot of myths and misinformation out there. The effective impact of some actions--reusing your grocery bags, for instance--is relatively low. Other methods, things that many people never even consider, are considerably more effective. For...

  • Hertz electric vehicle rental
    Renting an Electric Car: When Is It Smart, When Is It Dumb?

    One way for potential buyers to get familiar with electric cars is to rent one. Several rental companies, among them Enterprise, have announced plans to rent 2011 Nissan Leaf and other electric models at selected locations. Renting an electric car lets you spend far more time in one than the...

  • 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Drive  -  March 2011
    2011 Denver Auto Show: Toyota Displays CNG-Powered and Plug-In Hybrid Concepts

    This year’s 2011 Denver Auto Show (DAS) has a lot to offer consumers from demonstrations to manufacturer ride and drives to concept vehicles that will “fuel the future.” Wednesday marked the opening of the largest Denver Auto Show in history at some 500,000 sq. ft and it also...

  • car batteries are highly recyclable - AAA

    A concern raised over upcoming electric-drive cars--the all-electric 2011 Nissan Leaf, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, and the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid--is what happens to their lithium-ion battery packs once the car's life ends. Images of those battery packs tossed over cliffs or littering roadsides are a little overblown. Even after its automotive life is over, a used lithium-ion pack retains most of its energy capacity. Most analysts expect a secondary market for used batteries to arise late in the 2010s. For instance, packs might become energy accumulators for photovoltaic solar panels...

  • Prius Records
    Video: Toyota Prius Cranks Up The Crazy With Two Record-Breaking Days

    Spring has sprung for the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In. The highly anticipated hybrid recently began making the rounds with critics, so it's not surprising that Toyota chose the end of this month to tout the Prius brand by hosting a live, two-day event in which four Prii will be put through a number...

  • 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Drive  -  March 2011
    2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In: Driven

    When the Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid goes on sale about this time next year, it will be the first mass-production vehicle from Toyota that plugs in. Yet, despite that, the Plug-In feels more like a value-added version of the Prius than a model that will be itself iconic or radically new. It's...

  • Toyota Prius Plug-In
    2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In: By The Numbers, Would It Work For You?

    Over six days of driving—limited to around-town trips—we put about 103 miles on a fleet-test Toyota Prius Plug-In, averaging 90.8 miles per gallon. In that time, we gave the Prius Plug-In five full charges and two partial ones, and according to the trip computer, we covered 77.7 miles...

  • Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid prototype, tested in November 2010
    2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Impressions: Why It Needs An EV Button

    For those who travel very short distances, the Toyota Prius Plug-In could almost be thought of as an electric car. With a battery pack that's about 5 kW-hr—many times that of the standard Prius—it can, within reason travel at highway speeds on electric power alone, or up to 14 miles or...

  • 2011 Toyota Prius
    Elusive Cheapest Toyota Prius I Model Remains Unavailable

    Gas prices are rising, so you'd think that the 2011 Toyota Prius hybrid would be the car of the moment. But with car production halted in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami, Prius supplies are already growing tight. And Toyota is hardly helping the thriftiest buyers, those who want only a...

  • 2000 Toyota Prius

    Late last month, Toyota announced that it had delivered its 3-millionth hybrid-electric vehicle, with 3.03 million sold as of February 28. Of that total, almost 2.2 million were the company's dedicated hybrid Prius model, now in its third generation. The 1997 Toyota Prius four-door sedan was one of the world's two first hybrid-electric vehicles. For its first three years, it was sold only in Japan, after which a revised model was launched in the U.S. market for 2000. With the 2004 second-generation model, a larger hatchback that arrived just shortly before a runup in gasoline prices, the...

  • 2009 BYD F3DM
    Drive Report: BYD F3DM, Chinese Plug-In Hybrid Needs Work

    Chinese auto giant BYD is one of the world’s leaders in the field of hybrid vehicles, having been the first in the market with a mass-produced plug-in hybrid back in 2009--albeit in China only--and now with several small fleets of plug-in hybrid models here in the U.S. These are small-scale...

  • 2011 Toyota Prius
    Barrier To Buying Green: Electric Cars And Hybrids Confusing

    Think car buyers understand what a hybrid is, or a plug-in electric car? Think again. A new survey conducted by research firm Synovate finds that many of almost 1,900 new-car "buyers and intenders" don't understand how hybrid vehicles work. Worse, most of them don't seem to understand how...

  • Gas pump
    You'll Pay $700 More For Gasoline This Year (If You're Average)

    According to the Department of Energy, the average U.S. household will pay $700 more for gasoline this year than it did in 2010. In a weekly review of the oil market, the department's Energy Information Administration noted that prices will rise at least 10 cents more over the current national...

  • BMW ActiveE at 2011 Geneva Motor Show, photo by Robert Llewellyn
    2011 Geneva Motor Show Through A Convert's Eyes: Guest Post

    by Robert Llewellyn I was only there for one day, and I'm still recovering; car shows are fairly energy sapping events. Everyone I met in Halle 7 said the same thing, "Oh, Geneva is the best one. It's not too big, you can get around and see everything." Remind me never to go to the really big ones...

  • James Cameron, Suzy Amis with 2011 Chevy Volt at Global Green Pre-Oscar Party, Feb 2011
    Could Chevy Volt Plug-In Displace Prius Hybrid On Red Carpets?

    It all started with Leonardo DiCaprio, who showed up at the foot of the red carpet in his very own Toyota Prius. Within a couple of years, alighting from a Prius hybrid--or any other hybrid, including the hulking Cadillac Escalade Hybrid luxury full-size sport-utility vehicle--was de rigeur for any...

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