Toyota rushed a cut-rate version of its current Prius into development when Honda announced a sub-$20,000 price for the Insight a couple years ago, but the loss-leader never came to production. Turns out the incremental costs involved with adding crank windows and the like to the Prius weren't recoverable, and anyway, there was no need to worry. Insight sales provided no serious competition.
We don't yet know pricing on the new, smaller Toyota Prius C four-door hatchback, which is coming to the 2012 Detroit show in
U.S. spec trim (Toyota unveiled the Aqua, the Japanese market version at the Tokyo Motor Show). It too doesn't need to match the Insight's price tag to be a bigger success. The Prius C, like its bigger brother, is a full Synergy Drive hybrid, not a mild hybrid like the Honda.
If the midsize Prius hatchback is an alterna-Camry, the Prius C is an alterna-Corolla, a good fit for world markets where compacts are more popular. Establishing the Prius worldwide as a hybrid icon first will make it easier to sell the Prius C in Europe and elsewhere. The bottom line: Globally, the C likely will become Toyota's most important Prius.
With a 157.3-inch overall length to the standard Prius' 176.4, on a 5.9-inch-shorter wheelbase with 1.8-inch-lower height, the Prius C combines a 1.5-liter DOHC four with Hybrid Synergy Drive. Toyota expects better than 50-mpg city fuel mileage on the EPA cycle to make it the highest of any non-plug-in model.
Toyota promises lots of kit "at an attractive price," including Bluetooth connectivity, steering wheel audio controls, and nine airbags standard. Toyota's Entune infotainment, with connection to Bing, OpenTable.com, and movietickets.com, will be optional. Entune also offers real-time weather, traffic, gas station prices, stocks and sports, voice recognition, music streaming, and e-mail/text-to-speech capabilities. The ultimate fuel-saver might be sitting in the car and playing with all this connectivity instead of driving it. The Prius C will go on sale in the U.S. in the first half of 2012.
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