Cheap Toyota Prius For Sale

Toyota Prius Hybrid For Sale

Prius Based Sportscar is On the Horizon For Toyota

Sports car , or "sporty car". Not sure if there is any real market for a hybrid sports car right now. We will see. Tough to know in todays economy.

The gasoline powerplant is not mentioned, but the car would get a heavily massaged version of the Hybrid Synergy Drive with gear selection courtesy of steering wheel mounted paddle shifters. An unnamed Toyota executive noted the targeted price point is somewhere around $24,000 with a 0-60 MPH time around 7 seconds. So a historically quirky, lightweight mid-engined, manual transmission sports car gets green by going heavy with hybrid bits, an automagic transmission and God-only-knows what powertrain layout.

Soruce : Jalopnikand Gizmodo

2010 Honda Insight vs 2009 Toyota Prius Test

Inside Line tested a 2010 Honda Insight vs a 2009 Toyota Prius and had some interesting results. The Insight is a lower cost hybrid car coming in $5,473 less than the 2009 Prius. This difference in price could mean even though the Prius gets better gas mileage, the savings vs the Insight is only $70 a year at the current gas prices. Inside Line also figured out if gas prices jumped to $5 a gallon, the Prius owner would have to drive his car 413,000 miles just to break even with the cost of the Insight.

The two cars look very similar at a glance. The Honda Insight should be able to out Prius, the Prius.

Our Prius boasted its fuel economy of 48 mpg city/45 mpg highway on its price sticker and it was equipped with the $3,280 Package #5 option, including a navigation system, premium audio, satellite radio capability, Bluetooth, a back-up camera, stability control, cruise control and a few other items. This car is well-equipped but not the most fully loaded Prius variant available and checks in at $27,643.

The all-new 2010 Honda Insight merges an updated version of Honda's Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) hybrid system with a 1.3-liter, eight-valve inline-4, and the powertrain produces a combined output of 98 hp and 123 pound-feet of torque. The IMA system slots a 13-hp electric motor between the engine and continuously variable transmission (CVT) and it is juiced by a nickel-metal hydride battery pack behind the rear seats. Lithium-ion batteries would have cut the space requirement in half, chief engineer Yasunari Seki says, but were quickly rejected on the basis of cost.

And cost is the Insight's trump card. Honda's hybrid system is more basic than the Prius' NASA-grade hardware, yet its more affordable cost is the key to delivering the Insight's dirt-cheap sticker price. At least, we think it's dirt cheap. Pricing hasn't been formally announced, so we're going on whispers and hints from the Honda brass. But you can count on the Insight's official EPA fuel-economy rating of 40 mpg city/43 mpg highway, plus the fact that the car will be formally released on Earth Day, April 22, 2009.

Our scrutiny of Honda's marketing data makes us pretty confident that the model we drove — a fully optioned Insight EX with navigation — will sticker for very close to $22,170 with destination. If we're wrong, then we only request that you wait at least three weeks before composing your hate mail.

Each car achieves over 50 mpg in Inside Lines testing. They say the ride in the Prius is better than the Insight. The flip side of this being the Insight steering, and handling feel better than the Prius.

To make a long, boring story short, the Prius netted 54.4 mpg to the Insight's 51.5 mpg during our driving loops. These results are considerably better than the EPA estimates for each car since our driving style was conservative to minimize variables in performance and to ensure the cars remained nose-to-tail for the entire drive. Hard-core hypermiling wonks will undoubtedly top even these results.

I suspect we will see a lot of Honda Insights on the road, if Honda can keep the price in the low 20k range.

Source: Inside Line

Toyota Prius Cars and Parts at the Best Prices

Toyota Working on Solar Powered Car

According to The Nikkei, Toyota is working on an electric vehicle that will get some of its power from solar cells equipped on the vehicle, and that can be recharged with electricity generated from solar panels on the roofs of homes. The automaker later hopes to develop a model totally powered by solar cells on the vehicle, the newspaper said without citing sources.

They mention that Toyota is struggling. They are the richest of all the automakers, and for the first time in 70 years have posted a loss. I don't consider Toyota to be struggling. They are however paving the way in alternate powered mass produced vehicles. Solar power is still in its infancy. It has its draw backs and limitations. At least at this point, its nothing but a back up power source. If it were used in conjunction with batteries, and solar power on a house, then it could turn into something. A Prius that plugs into the homes solar grid, and is used to charge and store power. Those times when a houses demands are low, then the car would charge. When the demands are high, then the car acts as a backup source of power.

There was an article recently about some people using their Toyota Prius or Honda Insight as a backup power source during power outages. Honda was questioned about it, and they said that the batteries in the cars were not designed for this kind of use. Rather someone should buy a Honda generator, which is designed to provide backup power.


Source: Yahoo

Toyota Prius Sales Drop

From Marketwatch.

Sales of the Prius, Toyota's one-time hot-selling hybrid, dropped 48.3% to 8,660 vehicles from 16,737 last year as gas prices fell hard from record highs.

Was it gas prices, an overall cooling of the market ? Prius sales down nearly 50% is a big, huge change.



Do these prices seem like a distant memory ? Maybe a reoccurring nightmare ? With gas under $2 a gallon for regular, its easy to forget these nearly $5 a gallon prices.

Hypermiling Toyota Prius

Market Watch

"In an 844-mile tour of Texas, a hypermiling expert driving a hybrid Toyota Prius was able to average 68.5 miles per gallon of gas, 49 percent more than the EPA estimate of 46 mpg for the car. On just one tank of gas, the driver was also able to get markedly better gas mileage and use much less gas than a driver in a Prius on the same route, using normal driving habits."

"Bryant got 68.5 miles per gallon on the trip, while Garfield averaged 40.4 mpg. Driving the 844 miles on the trip, Bryant used only 12.3 gallons of gas, while Garfield used 20.9 gallons. At $4 per gallon, Bryant's hypermiling techniques cost $49.20 and saved $34.40 over Garfield's gas cost of $83.60."

Toyota Prius

Toyota Prius