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TOKYO — The brand new Toyota gas-electric Prius hybrid not solely comes with extra energy, acceleration and driving vary. It’s additionally extra trendy, scrapping the reasonably stodgy angular physique for a sleekly futuristic look.
Simon Humphries, senior common supervisor of World Toyota design who unveiled the automotive in Tokyo and Los Angeles on Wednesday, burdened that the corporate was nonetheless defying the skeptics who maintain asking how for much longer the Japanese automaker will follow hybrids in a quickly electrifying business.
“Just because the Prius is an eco-car inside everybody’s attain. In an effort to obtain carbon neutrality, everybody on this planet should take part,” he informed reporters. “We’d like ecological options inside attain of the numerous. And it wants to begin at the moment, not tomorrow.”
The fifth-generation Prius hybrid fashions will go on sale this winter first in Japan then the U.S. A plug-in model will hit the market subsequent yr, in response to Toyota Motor Corp. Costs weren’t introduced.
The automaker swapped an older nickel-metal-hydride battery for a smaller, lighter lithium-ion battery that places out 15% extra power. The engine grows from 1.8 liters to 2, and the horsepower rises from 121 to above 190. Because of this, zero to 60 mph (97 kilometers per hour) acceleration drops from over 10 seconds to round 7 seconds relying on the Prius model.
“That basically will make for extra assured driving,” mentioned Stephanie Brinley, principal automotive analyst for S&P World Mobility.
The Prius, which first went on sale in 1997, switches backwards and forwards between a gasoline engine and electrical motor to ship a cleaner drive than the fashions with common combustion engines.
Toyota estimates the 2023 Prius will get 57 mpg in mixed metropolis and freeway driving, calling it probably the most environment friendly Prius ever.
Electrical automobiles are zero-emissions however want recharging. Some customers are fearful about working out of juice on the roads. A hybrid all the time has the fuel engine as backup.
Toyota has cumulatively offered greater than 20.3 million hybrid autos, together with Prius automobiles, around the globe thus far. The Prius, which implies “pioneer” or “first” in Latin, has outlined Toyota as a model as a lot as its Lexus luxurious fashions.
Nonetheless, Toyota has generally been criticized by environmentalists as dragging its ft on electrification, though some analysts say that’s a bit unfair provided that different automakers even have few electrical automobiles of their lineups, and plenty of others have developed numerous hybrid fashions.
“The sale of extra hybrid autos, together with the Prius, drags us additional into the local weather disaster,” mentioned Daniel Learn of Greenpeace East Asia, based mostly in Tokyo.
Learn mentioned electrical autos and fuel-cell fashions are higher options in opposition to local weather change than hybrids.
Humphries mentioned the brand new Prius was styled to be extra secure, with a decrease heart of gravity, greater tires, curvaceous strains for its general design and a flowery inside.
“We actually believed the following step for Prius was to develop into a ‘automotive with out compromises’ to be able to enhance its attraction to the shopper,” mentioned Humphries.
The Prius, with its revamped styling and effectivity, will compete higher not solely with different hybrid fashions but additionally with the out there era of totally electrical autos,
The Prius fashions have all the time served as a sort of bridge to a time when there are extra charging stations for EVs, mentioned Brinley, who believes the brand new Prius stacks up higher in opposition to hybrids and plug-ins from Hyundai, Kia, Ford and Jeep.
By including 50% to the battery vary, which interprets to round 38 miles (61 kilometers), it may possibly go far sufficient to cowl the common U.S. driver’s commute and errands round city. The hybrid powertrain permits for highway journeys with out worrying a few charging community that’s not but full, Brinley mentioned.
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Krisher reported from Detroit.
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Krisher is on Twitter https://twitter.com/tkrisher
Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama
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