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