Toyota Prius News

Imagine if your car could talk. What would it say about you? While for the immediate future, this is largely an impossibility, one aspiring actress based on the “West Side” has envisaged just what it could be like if cars were able to talk. Alyssa Price, the proud owner of a Toyota Prius and...

If you're lucky you may already be on a waiting list for the 2011 Nissan Leaf. Or perhaps you've decided to get the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. If your next car is electric it could easily immunize you from fluctuating gas prices and ensure low running costs. But what will that shiny new electric car be...

One million gallons a day is a lot of oil. According to estimates late last week, that could be the daily rate of oil escaping from the Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico. To put that number in perspective, we decided to look at what it would take to compensate just for the lost gasoline...

Chevrolet and Nissan both have electric vehicles set to hit the streets this Fall.  But unless you're extremely lucky the chances are you won't be driving one until at least the middle part of 2011. Why? Because of limited production runs, demand is outstripping supply. Is it part of some big...

We know that Prius owners love their cars. Sometimes they talk endlessly about them, their great fuel efficiency, how cool the all-electric mode is, and so forth. But could you get so enthusiastic about Prius that you'd let your own child starve to death? Good. We didn't think so. And, no, it's not...

While the all-electric cars being launched as 2011 models--the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt, and Coda Sedan--get lots of attention, their total U.S. sales won't break 100,000 in their first year. Toyota, on the other hand, sells more than twice that number of hybrids here each year, making it by far...

Speculation about what models will join an expanded Toyota Prius lineup has run rampant since Toyota confirmed at January's Detroit Auto Show that it would add more body styles to the current five-door hatchback. One candidate: the Auris Hybrid, effectively a hybrid version of the Corolla hatchback...

Toyota's plans to expand its Prius hybrid into an entire line of vehicles still aren't completely clear. Rumored new models have included a coupe version and a tall station wagon or "people mover" small minivan. Now a road test of the Europe-only 2011 Toyota Auris Hybrid raises the question: Will...

 The EPA and CARB like zero emissions vehicles, but don't want you controlling when you decide your vehicle is zero emissions. According to Tony Posawatz, line director for the Chevy Volt program, the two agencies concerned with protecting the emissions from cars aren't happy about a plug in...

Sales of the 2010 Toyota Prius are booming in the U.S., up more than 50 percent over last year during April alone. But they're way better yet in Japan, where the 2010 Prius has just completed a full year as the country's best-selling car. Toyota sold 26,482 Prius models in Japan during April...

Toyota has come under some fire from electric-vehicle enthusiasts for what some perceive as a grudging, halfhearted approach to building vehicles that plug in. Its first U.S.-market plug-in vehicle--not including a thousand or so RAV4 electric crossovers a decade ago--will be the 2012 Toyota Prius...

Everyone has opinions. But if you had to wrap up what's happening in green cars today by naming three trends, what would they be? The ever-eager publicists at auto-classified site AutoTrader.com sent us their list of three changes in the world of eco-friendly vehicles. We've reproduced them below...

We've been thinking a lot about the prototype 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid since our test drive of a prototype last month. And about the rest of the plug-in cars that will come to market over the next two years. To our surprise, we decided we don't think buyers will directly compare the Prius...

You'd be forgiven for thinking Hawaii is the center of the electric vehicle universe. Wednesday, Nissan announced it would be one of the first markets for the 2011 Leaf electric vehicle. Then yesterday South Korean manufacturer CT&T signed a deal with the state's governor, Linda Lingle, to...

On the surface, buying a "green car" often doesn't make sense. Or rather, it doesn't make dollars and cents: The extra cost of the necessary technology--whether it's a hybrid, a clean diesel, or a plug-in electric car--is often never recouped in fuel savings. So why do people do it? Turns out it's...

Toyota Motor Sales announced yesterday that its U.S. sales of new cars were up 24.4 percent over the previous April, during the worst of the economic meltdown. Despite recent months--during which a lawsuits have rained down on Toyota for unintended acceleration and brake related safety concerns...

We've written several times about the accelerator-pedal recall for 2004-2009 Toyota Prius models. While plans for the recall were announced last fall, now Toyota has sent out letters inviting Prius owners to bring their cars in to dealers for the update. The recall came after it was discovered that...

Do you know when to accelerate your Prius "as though there's an eggshell between your foot and the pedal," and when to move away briskly? If you do, you may already be an experienced Prius driver. If not, we have just the video for you. In less than four minutes, our editor goes through some of the...

Do you know the difference between a mild hybrid like a 2010 Honda Insight, and a full hybrid like the 2010 Toyota Prius? Or what happens to all hybrid vehicles when the weather gets cold? If you do, you're probably well versed in green cars, and you may already be a hybrid vehicle owner. If not...

As New York City works aggressively to reduce its carbon footprint and cut exhaust emissions, it has encouraged large fleets to switch to hybrids. From utility ConEd to the fleets of yellow cabs, more and more hybrids are showing up on city streets. The latest large fleet to go greener is the New...