News: Toyota could have made Prius 3 more efficient; customers demanded more power

[MetroMPG]

At the launch of the new-generation Toyota Prius in Sydney yesterday, chief engineer Akihiko Otsuka admitted the company had opted for a bigger, more powerful engine because customers had demanded it.He said the new car, which remains the most fuel-efficient in the country, could have been designed to use less fuel than the 3.9 litres per 100 kilometres it achieves.

"With a different approach, we could have done even better. However, customers told us they wanted more performance. In response, we selected a larger engine."

Source: Prius a paler shade of green

Of course, nobody at EcoModder will be surprised to learn an automaker has left fuel economy on the table. That's not news.

But I chuckled when I read the chief engineer of the Prius admitting as much because their customers want MO POWAH!

[Daox]

Just another reason why the general population is stupid. The gen 2 Prius has plenty of acceleration. Is it fast? No. Does it need to be fast? Absolutely not.

[Piwoslaw]

Most car models have more than one engine option, couldn't they do the same with the Prius? There would be the small-engined, ultra-efficient version for those who want to use less fuel, and the 5.6 liter V10 for those who only want to sleep well knowing they can brag about owning a Prius.

[Frank Lee]

Seems many Priuii are driven like they're stolen. Perhaps the car is too quiet and it's not giving the full illusion of speed and power? The clever engineers could have a big V8 soundtrack play through the stereo that matches engine rpms fool the fools that don't think they're moving cuz they don't hear any cacophony.

[RobertSmalls]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Seems many Priuii

Prii, if you want to pretend Prius is a Latin noun. Priora, if you acknowledge that Prius the adverbial form of "prior". Prius, if you accept Toyota's assertion that the plural form is the same as the singular form.

A friend's mom bought the V6 Accord because she felt she needed more power than the I4 could provide, but she doesn't like to exceed 3000 RPM. Somebody needs to teach Everymom that it's okay to approach redline when you're merging or passing, and engines are supposed to sound whiny.

[MetroMPG]

What's interesting is when the car came out, the official line for going with the 1.8 was it permitted better highway fuel economy because its greater torque = lower RPM.

Which may be true.

But now they're saying something entirely different about the engine choice.

Piwoslaw: wouldn't it be interesting if they offered the "old" 1.5 in the new body style?

[Allch Chcar]

Nitpicking. There's nothing wrong with a button for better acceleration either. The Prius still uses a very underpowered engine for a car of it's size. You don't see many with outputs in that range for a midsize devoid of a v6. Increasing the engine was a bad idea IMHO, now it's ever closer to competing with the Camry. I suppose that's the least of their concerns, if the Prius could replace the Camry it might actually work out better overall.

RobertSmalls, I see your statement on moms favoring v6s for the power but refusing to rev the engine (or even drive a manual). But just think of Prius as a Japanese word that neither needs to be spelt plural nor should be. It doesn't matter if they got it from Latin as a word that means to precede and therefore should be spelt Prii for plural. The more you fret over it the worse you'll be for it.

[Christ]

So Prius = Sheep? (Plural form...)