As part of Solar Week here at (incli)NATION I wanted to have a look at the solar Prius. Well, it doesn’t seem to be even close to production, and while I’m all for speculative technology, I’ll need to be upgrading my Prius pretty soon. I found a couple advanced images at Road & Track and thought I’d share them here.

"As for the motor/engine, here’s what we uncovered. The displacement of
the inline-4 will grow from 1.5 liters to 1.8, which will result in
more power and torque. The gasoline engine will produce about 100 bhp
and 105 lb.-ft. of torque, and the electric motor generating about 60
bhp, making the new Prius more powerful than ever. We hear it will run
from zero to 60 mph in about 9.5 seconds and reach a top speed of about
115 mph.

With this extra oomph, one would expect the car’s
fuel economy to suffer. Nope. Amazingly, the Prius will be even more
fuel-efficient than it is now. According to our sources, Toyota has
improved its hybrid
system so the electric motor plays a bigger role when driving.
Therefore, don’t be surprised when a slow drive to the corner market is
achieved without using a single drop of gasoline.

Now here’s the real kicker. The price of the all-new Prius will probably be
the about same, perhaps even lower, than the current one. Toyota is
expected to offer three trim levels: base, luxury and eco, with the
base model starting around $21,000. Of course, these prices are at the
mercy of the dollar/yen exchange rate, so don’t take them to the bank
just yet. What is sure is that the next Prius will be as
ground-breaking as the model before it, and Toyota will remain the
global leader in fuel-efficient modes of transportation."

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 6:49 am and is filed under Design, Environment, Green Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.