Toyota News
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The 2010 Hyundai Elantra is the latest iteration of a compact car known for frugality and low price. This year, Hyundai has boosted the mileage, raising the standard five-speed manual model to 26 mpg city / 35 mpg highway from last year's 24 mpg city / 33 mpg highway. The 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine's power ratings remain unchanged at 138 horsepower, or 132 hp in the dozen or so states that have adopted California's stricter PZEV standards. The more fuel efficient Elantra has several changes and recalibrations that together raise gas mileage up to 8 percent. Hyundai cut mechanical...
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Prius Name Headed To More Toyota Hybrid ModelsIn a meeting held between top Toyota executives and Toyota dealers across the nation, the company made it official that the Prius name will be seen on more hybrid models coming soon from Toyota. The meeting was held in Las Vegas over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday this week. According to the...
Eric Loveday -
Coming Up: Toyota Prius To Be Sold In Multiple Body StylesSince it was launched in 1997 in Japan, and 2000 in the US, the Toyota Prius has only been sold as a single body style. From 1997 to 2003, it was a subcompact four-door sedan. Since then, it has been a midsize five-door hatchback, thoroughly redesigned for 2010. Now, Toyota executives told its...
John Voelcker -
Preview: 2011 Mazda2Mazda will launch its global subcompact, the Mazda2 five-door hatchback, in the US market roughly a year from now. Its first appearance in North America will be at December's 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show. Price is likely to be around $16,000. It is based on the same platform as the eagerly awaited...
John Voelcker -
Toyota Vice President Says Electric Cars Are Too Expensive"Electric vehicles of today are less costly than in 1990s, but if you compare them with the other vehicles out there they are still too expensive." Those were the words of Toyota Executive Vice President, Takeshi Uchiyamada, at the Frankfurt Motor Show which opened to the press today. "Unless there...
Robert Scardino -
Drag Race Video: 2010 Toyota Prius vs 2009 Toyota PriusWhich is faster, the 2010 Toyota Prius or its predecessor, the 2004-2009 Prius? On paper, the 2010 should win. Its engine is larger (1.8 liters vs 1.5 liters) and more powerful (134 total horsepower vs 104 hp). It's even got a lower coefficient of drag, the very respectable 0.25. This morning we...
John Voelcker -
My first impression of the third-gen Prius left me wondering what was cool about the vehicle. There aren't any growing leaves on the instrument panel, there's no sound that plays when you "boot up" the car (ala the Mac start-up sound). Yesterday, though, I had a mini-epiphany at the grocery store. Yes, while buying peanut butter and soup, I had a Prius-related ah-ha moment. I picked up one of my daughter's friends, a recent high school graduate who is shopping for a car. I thought the Prius would be a good choice for her, a college student and burgeoning eco-warrior. As I drove, she poked...
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Third-Gen Toyota Prius Ride & Drive, Day 1: First ImpressionLast month, I drove the Lexus HS 250h for one week, and this week, I'm test driving the third-gen Toyota Prius. When I sat inside, my first thought was: boy, I wish they had given me the Prius first, then the Lexus. Not that the Prius isn't a great little car. It's just not a luxury car. I had...
Jennifer Knightstep -
Want To Be An Editorial Intern at High Gear Media? Talk To Us!High Gear Media, the parent company of AllAboutPrius.com and more than three dozen other automotive websites, is now looking for editorial interns. They'll do a mix of writing, publishing, and editing content across our entire network car-related sites. Here's what we offer to our interns: stories...
John Voelcker -
Lexus Releases More Details On The LF-Ch Hybrid ConceptIf you like premium compact hatchbacks, Lexus has something for you - provided you live in Europe. As we've previously reported, Toyota's luxury brand will unveil their LF-Ch hybrid concept in a few days at the Frankfurt Motor Show and their most recent press release called our attention to some of...
Robert Scardino -
Algae-Powered Prius Plug-In Helps Hybrid Go Even GreenerWe've written before about Prius plug-in conversions, but here's a new wrinkle: a 2008 Toyota Prius plug-in that's also running on biofuel derived partly from algae grown specifically as a source of fuel. It's the "Algaeus," a project of the Veggie Van Organization in Santa Monica, California. The...
John Voelcker -
Want To Go Even Greener? Power Your Prius on...Algae ?!?!?There's something about the Toyota Prius that makes people want to modify it. Maybe it's the Hybrid Synergy Drive system, maybe it's the electric running, maybe it's even the car's shape. We're not quite sure. Now, joining the growing parade of Prius plug-in conversions (whether professional or...
John Voelcker -
We're a bit late on what's usually an end-of-month recap of the five most popular posts on AllAboutPrius.com. But, hey, we had a long Labor Day too ... and now we're back in business. So here they are for August. Unusually for us, compared to July's most popular posts, three of our Top Five are brand-new for August. Usually the same items stay on top of the rankings month after month, so we're delighted that our recent news coverage has displaced some regular winners. # 1: 30 Days of the 2010 Toyota Prius: Your Reference Guide. As always, this one's on top. It has ruled our Top Five ranking...
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2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI: 36-39 MPG in Real-World UseHybrid vs diesel: It's a longstanding green-car conundrum. Which is better, a hybrid-electric vehicle that recaptures wasted energy in a battery and uses it to assist the gasoline engine, or an efficient modern clean diesel that goes further on a gallon of fuel? The answer depends in part on your...
John Voelcker -
Toyota Hybrids Blocked From U.S. Due to Patent Issues?With sales of Toyota hybrids booming in its home country and elsewhere across the globe, Toyota leads the competition in the hybrid market. Seemingly every hybrid model developed by the company fares well including the newly released Lexus HS 250h. So what could hold Toyota back in this hybrid...
Eric Loveday -
Final Version of Production Prius Plug-In For Frankfurt Auto ShowWhile literally hundreds of Toyota Prius owners have laid down thousands of dollars (in some cases, tens of thousands) by now for plug-in conversions, Toyota has proceeded slowly. Now it is showing what it says is the final version of its prototype Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid at the Frankfurt Motor...
John Voelcker -
Toyota Prius Plug-In To Launch at Frankfurt Auto ShowToyota will show the final version of its prototype Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid at the Frankfurt Motor Show two weeks hence, trying to keep up with the flurry of electric, hybrid, and diesel concepts to be shown there. With numerous concepts from German automakers, and GM pulling out all the...
John Voelcker -
Diversion: Electric Car Video By They Might Be GiantsHonestly, this post has very little to do with new cars for sale today. Instead, think of it another piece of green propaganda encouraging you to consider buying an emissions-free electric car when they start to enter the market in 2011 or thereabouts. The experimental alt-rock band They Might Be...
John Voelcker -
Toyota is planning to unveil three new hybrid concepts at the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show including an intriguing 5-door hatch for their upscale Lexus brand. The LF-Ch (pictured above) is aimed squarely at the premium compact segment whose other notable players include the BMW 1-series and the Audi A3. What sets the LF-Ch apart from its German competitors is Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive. Aside from that, precious few details have been released, but more information is expected in the days leading up to the Frankfurt show. The Toyota Auris Hybrid will also be on display as it prepares for...
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Rumormill: BMW and Toyota To Swap Mini, iQ Platforms?While it may not evoke as much car lust as this past weekend's unveiling of the BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Concept, BMW is rumored to be in negotiations with Toyota to borrow their iQ mini-car platform. In return, Toyota is reportedly interested in BMW's Mini division. Japan's largest automaker...
Robert Scardino -
Do Toyota Prius Hybrids Cause Cancer? [sigh] No, They Don't.Auto "influencers" are the people you ask whenever you have a car question. By virtue of editing AllAboutPrius.com and other High Gear Media sites, we're known as sort of a de facto influencer. And so we get some of the most random questions you can imagine. The latest was from the mother of a High...
John Voelcker -
More Kids Than Seats? How About a Six-Door Toyota Prius Limo?Auto websites compete with each other to get the newest, the latest, and the coolest. Sometimes one or more of the 39 sites in the High Gear Media network gets a scoop (like our recent first drive of the 2010 MazdaSpeed3); other times, we don't. So we tip our hat to our buddies at Jalopnik, who got...
John Voelcker -
2010 Toyota Prius Price-Gouging Pops UpWe've just read some nice investigative reporting by DailyTech's Jason Mick on a well-known but infuriating phenomenon: auto dealer price gouging, in this case on the sought-after 2010 Toyota Prius. We're far from the only outlet to note that the Cash-For-Clunkers plan boosted sales of the 2010...
John Voelcker -
Are Carmaker Sites Using Hybrids (Ineptly) As Spam Bait?We get a lot of spam. Everyone gets a lot of spam. In fact, Symantec says nine of every 10 e-mail messages are spam. But we're scratching our head over a recent spam that uses the topic of hybrid cars, particularly clumsily, to link (via Dubai, no less) to real carmakers' hybrid, diesel, and...
John Voelcker