Toyota Adding Six New Hybrids, Plug-In Prius and Electric City Car by 2012

[Daox]

Nice announcement. Its very nice to see a lower price put on the plug in prius. Thus far all I've seen in articles is (to paraphrase) 'omg it costs too much' or 'only 13 miles?'.

Toyota expects to begin selling a plug-in, rechargeable version of the Prius by June 2012. It expects to sell about 20,000 of the vehicles in the first year and to price the car at a $3,000 to $5,000 premium to the standard hybrid Prius, Toyota spokesman John Hanson said.

That would put the cost of a Prius that could be recharged at home to run on battery power for the first 13 miles (21 kilometers) at below $28,000.

...

He said that Toyota would offer a lower cost electric vehicle in 2012 for driving short distances. That small vehicle, which has been developed by Toyota's own engineers, is intended for urban car shoppers.

But at the same time, Toyota is racing to ready a battery-powered version of the RAV4 crossover using battery packs supplied by Tesla Motors Inc.

Toyota Adding Six New Hybrids, Plug-In Prius and Electric City Car by 2012 | AutoGuide.com News

http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dl...100919953/1424

[Allch Chcar]

One of those hybrids has been suggested would be a sports car. Either the Supra successor or the MR2 successor that Toyoda has been discussing. There was some news stories that the FT-86 That Toyota/Subaru are working on would be a hybrid and delaying until 2013 but Toyota has been answering emails to the contrary.

Like the cars in this article nothing has officially been announced regarding the specs or other details from what I have seen. A Supra hybrid would probably geared more towards the higher HP range but a MR2 has a chance to be more aerodynamic and would probably be more efficient aswell, if history is any indicator.