Like this, in fact. At first, I was a bit hesitant to post these pictures because they came from a “leak” and might not have been authentic. Suprisingly, Toyota fessed up that these were the real pictures. Now the blogosphere is abuzz with rumors that perhaps the leak was intentional to hype up the new car, but I won’t bore you with that.

The new Prius is supposed to be a little sportier, but still continue the car’s legacy as a treehugging icon, while hopefully fending off the new Honda Insight. No one can say if all that will happen right now, but check out the rest of the teaser shots and let us know in the comments what you think about the redesign. One thing I notice is the lack of rear wheel covers, but oh well!

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Toyota has been standoffish on the idea of a plug-in Prius for a long time. Whether or not Toyota feels that plug-ins are where the future of transportation lies, they’re still exploring the possibilities. Last year, the company partnered with EDF to add extra NiMH batteries to their cars that would be charged via plug in France. Recently, Toyota has expanded this program to the UK.

The goal of these trials is to see how the cars hold up in everday driving in urban environments. The area has been outfitted with 40 charging stations (made by EDF), where the testers will be able to park and charge up. For more information, check out the Toyota press PDF.

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It may be a little uncharacteristic, but I wanted to give a shout out to my friends over at BIG INK, who have converted their entire fleet over to Priuses. I’m obviously a big believer in individual action, but it’s great to see when that action trickles up to the company level. I think they’ve done something really creative to help the environmental movement and show off their car-wrapping savvy, plus I just love the motto “Little things make a BIG difference.” Anyway, congratulations to these guys, I hope more businesses follow in their footsteps. You can read more in the press release below:

Prius Fleet Drives BIG INK’s Green Business

Eagan, MN, August 26, 2008. During a brainstorming meeting the BIG INK
summer intern, who drives a hybrid Toyota Prius, half joked about
putting graphics on his car to launch the company’s Eco-Green campaign.
The idea took off and BIG INK partnered with Image Haus of Minneapolis
to create green inspired vehicle graphics that would garner customer and
industry attention to their green efforts.  The cars feature one of four
integrated designs and the simple yet powerful message of, “Little
Things Make a BIG Difference.”  Aside from being driven around the Twin
Cities, cars are being used for client visits, as well as being
strategically parked at local business events and the response has been
tremendous, people have taken notice.

Although the digital graphics industry is not well know for
environmental initiatives, BIG INK decided to start where it could.  An
internal Green Team was assembled, simple changes were made and the
company immediately felt the results.  “Even the small changes we made
had impact,” notes Tom Trutna BIG INK president. “From the onset we
started recycling over 2400 pounds of scrap waste each month along with
600 pounds of office paper.”  In order to educate the industry about the
initiatives they took, Trutna wrote an article entitled Kermit Was
Wrong! It Is Easy Being Green(er) that was published in Digital Graphics
magazine, encouraging other printers to adopt the easy practices that
make a difference.

With the internal processes in place, BIG INK started wondering how to
educate clients about green options as well as how to fulfill the needs
of eco-forward clients.  With that in mind, they launched more
environmental substrate options and a Zero-Waste recycling program to
customers.  “Event, trade show, even retail graphics are often used for
a short time and then tossed,” says Trutna, “with our Zero-Waste
Recycling Program, we’ll take back anything we produce and have it
recycled, keeping tons of graphics out of the waste stream.”  Customers
have taken note, the Eco-Green page of BIG INK’s web site now gets four
times more traffic than the other pages, bloggers are commenting on the
program and customers are starting to send items back to be recycled.
Notes Trutna, “the Prius fleet has proven to be a great marketing
vehicle that has brought attention to our many green efforts.  It drives
the ‘Little Things Make a BIG Difference’ message, features graphics we
produced, gets people thinking about being green and puts a smile on the
face of everyone who sees it.”

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Not only is Toyota (finally, it seems) updating the Prius, but the company is also planning on releasing a few new hybrids to beef up their lineup. It might be unfair to say finally as if the turnover has been slow, but the Prius has been in everyone’s eye for so long that the shape has seemed to become very familiar.

According to EcoGeek, Toyota will release one hybrid under the Lexus brand and another under the Toyota brand. Neither of these cars will be like the reigning champ, the Prius. Rather, the will be their own creatures. I’m sure Toyota is hoping they can create some more dedicated hybrids that act as green symbols as much as the current Prius does.

With these models Toyota will be making the move to more efficient Lithium Ion battery packs. Recently Toyota has announced they will be producing their own, likely in order to ensure they get the quality they desire in mass-production, but those batteries will not be available until at least 2012. Toyota is definitely still moving forwards toward plug-ins and full battery electrics, but all signs from the company suggest that plans for the near future lie in conventional hybrids.

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Where will you be from August 14th – August 23rd? For my part, I’ll be doing my best to represent my college at the Great Race MPG Challenge, driving from New York to San Francisco on as little fuel as possible.

Why would I be doing this? Because this year, to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1908 Great Race, the organizers of Hybrid Fest will be running a competition to see if any college teams can break 100 MPG in a cross country race.

More about the race after the break!

Here’s what the organizers have to say about the purpose of the competition:

Our goal? To encourage students, alumni, faculty and business to combine forces and discover the perfect combination of technology and driving habits to reach the magic number of 100 MPG. Sounds crazy, right? So did driving across the Bering Straits in the winter. Right now, people we call “hypermilers” are doing just that! In fact, one team achieved almost 110 MPG in an unmodified Toyota Prius and another scored 186 MPG with a Honda Insight! These are the very same cars you will find on the road today.

Every team will have a Prius to modify and then race, and will have to make the 4,000 mile journey within the rally time limits. If the winning team gets over 100 MPG over the entire trip they will take home the Great Race Innovation Prize of $1 Million, to be given to their school’s scholarship fund. Other teams will win prizes depending on their performance in the competition.

For a $5,000 entry fee any college can field a team made of of students, faculty, or other representatives of the college. As I have been told by the event organizer there is already interest at many schools and there will likely be a large field of competitors.

The most exciting thing about this contest is the combination of your standard Toyota Prius and the ability to do many modifications to that platform. Drivetrain mods are out, but it should be very interesting to see how a combination of driving skills, aerodynamics, and weight reduction can improve on what is generally thought of as the Prius “gold standard.”

This competition grew out of a larger plan to reenact the round the world trip from the 1908 Great Race, but the MPG Challenge portion fell through because the organizers could not find sponsors for such a large event. Unfortunate as that is, it’s great that there will still be a competition to help bring some of these issues to light in the public sphere.

For more information (though the site is still rather bare), and to sign up for email updates, check out the MPG Challenge homepage. And of course, more updates to come as a possible EcoModder.com team goes through the works!

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Related:

“Here is what I want my Prius to end up looking like.”
EcoModder forum thread about proposed aerodynamic mods to a 2nd generation Prius.

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Prius aero mods (undertrays, grille block, mirror delete…)
Details of a front and rear undertray installation and passenger side mirror delete on a 2nd gen Prius.

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