In a recent interview with the New York Times, Toyota’s president of sales in the US, James E. Lentz, said that he has been actively pushing for a separate Prius brand. Lentz’s logic is that with Toyota’s efforts to lead the way with hybrid vehicles, it would be worth launching a whole new brand to make the most of it.
This sort of thing certainly isn’t beyond Toyota, and a precedent has been set for the brand twice already with Lexus and – in the US – Scion. Lentz says the main difference with the Prius badge is that, unlike Lexus and Scion, it would be sold in Toyota dealerships alongside regular Toyota vehicles.
Lentz has presented the idea of a Yaris-sized hybrid, as well as a “Prius on steroids”. A performance Prius? Cripes. We’d certainly be interested to see what Toyota can do to sport-up the Prius (there’s some decidedly shoddy aftermarket efforts…)
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hybrids are the biggest con ever perpetrated on society. By the time you factor in all the environmental pros and cons that go into producing one of the these, the overall cost to the environment is about the same as a corolla or a yaris. Toyota is just cashing in on a brand that has a perception that you are doing something worthwhile - like donating money to your favourite charity. The sooner governments around the world realise this the better. Why do we as a society always do things the complicated way - like producing expensive alternatives like hybrids to save the environment. A better example would be to encourage big business and government departments who buy large numbers of fleet cars to buy corolla size cars on mass instead of large cars and this would go a long way to saving the environment!
ACT Government departments have already downsized their fleets. Ford and Holden utes have been replaced by jumbucks, Falcodores with Astras and the like.
I think the government would help a bit more if they got changed the bloody FBT on not doing enough km on lease cars. My folks have one and they have to go for interstate trips all the time to rack up enough km to avoid the thousands of dollars they’d be slogged with in FBT…