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You apperceive what the Toyota Prius is and all that it stands for. The third bearing of the iconic amalgam agent debuted two years ago. Now we’ve apprenticed the Prius v, which Toyota apparent at aftermost January’s 2011 Detroit auto show. It’s the aboriginal time that Toyota has added the Prius brand to a agent that’s bigger than the current-generation auto and its predecessor, the car that fabricated the Prius name a domiciliary word.
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As you ability or ability not accept guessed, the use of the twenty-second letter of the alphabet as allotment of the new, bigger Prius’s brand is to accent its added versatility, as compared with the accepted auto model. Toyota lowercases and italicizes the v in an attack to get bodies to accent the car’s name as “Prius vee” rather than “Prius five.” Um, acceptable luck with that, Toyota; we doubtable that you’ll accept a 50:50 success rate. Abounding bodies are activity to apprehend the v as a Roman numeral.
Adding to the nomenclatural confusion, Toyota has appointed three accessories levels for the Prius, and they’re accepted numerically, like the approved Prius models are. So we accept the Toyota Prius v Two (base model); the Toyota Prius v Three (the midline model); and the Toyota Prius v Bristles (the top-of-the-line model). Perhaps Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., should accept followed Toyota Europe’s advance and alleged our car the Prius .
HOW MUCH BIGGER IS IT?The 2012 Toyota Prius v isn’t the admeasurement of a Ford Explorer, but it’s appreciably bigger than the approved Prius. “My better ambition in developing the Prius v was account and space,” says arch architect Hiroshi Kayukawa, who fabricated the binding adventure to America to abode Home Depot parking lots and appointment acclaimed day-tripper sites afore abiding to his 1500-member development aggregation in Toyoda Burghal to alpha assignment on the Prius v. One imagines that his abstracts were simple: “Yep, Americans are big and they buy too abundant big being at big-box stores. So let’s accomplish the Prius v as big of a box as we can.”
The Prius v is congenital on the above Toyota MC belvedere as the approved Prius, with a Macpherson-strut advanced abeyance and torsion-beam rear. Abject auto and tires are sixteen inches, up from fifteen inches in the approved Prius, and seventeens are optional. The wheelbase is 3.1 inches longer, at 109.4 inches; all-embracing breadth is 6.1 inches longer, at 181.7 inches (15.1 feet); the agent is 3.3 inches higher, at 62.0 inches; and it’s 1.1 inches wider, at 69.9 inches. Autogenous aggregate rises by 3.5 cubic feet, to 97.2 cu ft. There’s hardly added head, shoulder, and hip allowance both advanced and rear, but advanced legroom, abnormally enough, is bottomward 1.2 inches.
As for burden space, one of the attributes that acquired some abeyant buyers of the absolute third-generation Prius to go elsewhere? It rises from 21.6 cubic anxiety abaft the rear seats to 34.3 cubic feet, or 40.2 cubic anxiety aback the seats are absolutely forward. With a disciplinarian and a front-seat commuter in abode and the rear seats folded, the air amplitude abaft them rises dramatically, from 39.6 cubic anxiety for the third-generation Prius to 67.3 cubic anxiety in the v. To put these abstracts into perspective, a Toyota Camry auto has 15 cubic anxiety of burden capacity, so the Prius v has about a Camry’s account of added amplitude abaft the rear seats aback they’re occupied, and aback those seats are folded, it has the agnate of about two Camry trunks in added cubic footage accessible beneath its angled rear roofline.
The Prius v’s H-point (the ambit from an boilerplate person’s hip collective to the ground) is 30 mm (1.2 inches) college for front-seat occupants and 80 mm (3.1 inches) college in the rear. This gives the Prius v some admeasurement of the college basement position that abounding bodies like in crossovers and SUVs.
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The Prius v has a 3274-lb barrier weight, which is 232 lb added than the approved Prius’s 3042-lb weight; not a bad weight amends because the admission in agent size. Toyota says that the 0-to-60-mph time is 10.4 seconds, against 9.8 abnormal for the accepted Prius.
DOES IT HAVE THE SAME POWERTRAIN AS THE REGULAR PRIUS?Yes, indeed, it does. The 2012 Toyota Prius v shares its Amalgam Synergy Drive powertrain with the regular, third-generation Prius hatchback. It consists of a 1.8-liter, Atkinson-cycle, four-cylinder gasoline agent authoritative 98 hp and 105 lb-ft of torque; a power-control unit; a nickel-metal-hydride array pack; and an electric amalgam transaxle. Total achievement is 134 hp. One affair that’s new is a cooling anorak for the transaxle to air-conditioned the two permanent-magnet electric-motor/generators. Accessory alternative for the CVT (continuously capricious transmission) is via a dash-mounted batten that you cull to the basal of the aboideau into D for drive or aback up for R for reverse; to baddest P for Park, you columnist a abstracted button amid aloft this accessory lever.
HOW DOES ITS FUEL ECONOMY COMPARE WITH THAT OF THE REGULAR PRIUS?“I knew I had to focus on two areas for the Prius v to accomplish acceptable ammunition economy,” recalls Kayukawa: “Aerodynamics and weight reduction. We concentrated on air breeze over the aback of the roof and the rear flanks, and we accomplished a accessory of annoyance of 0.29.” So-called “aero corners” on the advanced and rear bumpers and a anxiously advised rear addle-brain helped with this. Molded into the headlights are little eyebrows that abstracted the air and move it about the ancillary mirrors.
EPA numbers are not yet finalized, but Toyota estimates 44-mpg city, 40-mpg highway, 42-mpg accumulated ratings. This compares with 51/48/50 mpg in the accepted Prius. In our own drives abreast Bisected Moon Bay, California, south of San Francisco, we accomplished 37 mpg on a 48-mile bend that included hilly, aerial Skyline Blvd.; and 40 mpg on a 44-mile bend that included ten afar of freeway, a continued amplitude of California Artery 1, and added of Skyline Blvd. These routes were hardly apocalyptic of the boilerplate American’s urban/suburban commute, and we were not active gingerly, so the Prius did appealing well.
IT DRIVES A LOT LIKE A REGULAR PRIUSYou advance a button on the birr to about-face on the vehicle, which starts in electric mode. A new admonishing accent for pedestrians, not aural from central the car, sounds a bit like a sucking babble through a tube. This is to atone for the actuality that, at low speeds, there’s no accepted agent babble to active pedestrians to the attendance of the Prius.
The huge, ample windshield makes for accomplished advanced visibility. You can manually drag the driver’s bank absolutely a bit, so you feel like you’re benumbed high, or you can pump the bank bottomward against the attic and you feel like you’re appreciably afterpiece to the ground.
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There’s lots of CVT bombinate and mooing as the Prius v struggles to advance up the abundance against Skyline Blvd. This is not exciting. Once we’re bonds alternating this mountaintop alley through the trees, though, the Prius provides reasonable and anticipated anatomy control. There’s appropriate backpack in the steering, but it feels artificially abounding and isn’t beeline off-center. Still, it’s accessible to abode the car in a corner, and afterwards active the Prius on a cardinal of arduous anchorage at a clip that few drivers anytime will, we’d say it ain’t bad at all. Sure, there’s the accepted aberration to the anchor pedal response, but that improves a bit if you move the accessory batten into the B ambience to appoint added agent braking.
Southbound on the 280, we noticed some wind blitz over the A-pillars and a bit of alley noise, but the Prius v has a actual adequate freeway ride. A new Angle and Bounce Ascendancy arrangement varies the bulk of torque the amalgam motor sends to the advanced arbor to abolish angle and dive. It’s subtle, but it does appreciably advice accumulate this bigger, best Prius on an alike keel.
INSIDE THE BIGGEST PRIUS YETAs standard, the seats are adipose in fabric. A new, leather-like bolt alleged SofTex is optional. To alarm it vinyl is unfair, because it’s bendable and nice; Toyota says it weighs 28 percent beneath than covering and emits beneath VOC’s during production. The lid of the centermost animate bin, which acts as an armrest, is adipose in a swath of suede-like material. A advanced apparatus binnacle stretches beyond the centermost of the birr and contains the speedometer, ammunition gauge, and added readouts. At the basal of the centermost stack, a anew advised climate-control punch toggles larboard to appropriate to move amid mode, temperature, and fan speed; it’s a accurately advised mechanism.
The absolute account is in the rear seat. Huge rear doors and a two-level autogenous barrier accomplish admission and departure easy. Parents should acquisition it accessible to footfall into the agent to install adolescent seats and to defended rug rats into them. Sitting abaft a five-foot, eleven-inch driver, I begin affluence of rear-seat bottom room, as your anxiety can extend beneath the advanced seats. There’s acceptable leg and knee allowance and acceptable ancillary visibility, additional a adequate pull-down centermost armrest. The centermost basement position is awkward and adamant but it will be accomplished for abbreviate trips. The 60/40-split rear bank slides aback and alternating added than seven inches, so you can accept amid added legroom and added burden room. The seatbacks recline amid 17 and 45 degrees.
PANORAMIC VIEWS, PANDORA, AND OTHER GOODIESAn alternative across-the-board moon roof for the top-spec Prius v Bristles uses two anchored polycarbonate roof panels, which are 50 percent lighter than a analogously sized bottle roof would be. Although the windows don’t open, they let in lots of light; a ability roller adumbration can awning them completely.
A back camera is accepted on all three Prius v grades, and alarm cruise ascendancy is accessible as allotment of the Advanced Technology Package on the Five. An accessible JBL GreenEdge stereo weighs 4.2 lb beneath than a agnate assemblage on the approved Prius and puts beneath demands on the alternator. Toyota makes abundant about its new Entune system, whereby you use an app on your acute buzz to admission Bing maps, Iheartradio, sports, weather, Pandora, and added services, all streamed through your adaptable accessory but accessed through the blow screen. We had no luck accepting Pandora to assignment in our aboriginal analysis car but in addition agent it formed accomplished and we were hitting the accede and thumbs-down images on the blow awning to fine-tune our music preferences.
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FUTURE PRIUS PLANSToyota has already accepted that it will acquaint a plug-in-hybrid Prius, agnate to the Chevy Volt, in the aboriginal bisected of 2012. The aggregation will additionally accompany us its aboriginal Prius yet, based on the Prius C concept, ancient abutting year. “I see Prius eventually arch Toyota sales actuality in the United States,” says Bob Carter, accumulation carnality admiral and accepted administrator of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. “The Prius ancestors defines Toyota today.” Carter says that, including the above new Prius models, Toyota will acquaint some ten new amalgam models beyond its Toyota and Lexus brands over the abutting twenty months, and six will be absolutely new.
2012 Toyota Prius vBase amount range, estimated: $26,000-$31,000
PowertrainEngine: 1.8-liter DOHC 16-valve I-4Horsepower: 98 hp @ 5200 rpmTorque: 105 lb-ft @ 4000 rpmTransmission: Continuously capricious automaticDrive: Front-wheel
Hybrid Array Pack28 nickel-metal-hydride 7.2-volt modules, cooling blower and control
Hybrid TransaxleTwo liquid-cooled, permanent-magnet motors (MG1 & MG2)650-volt operating voltage
MeasurementsWheelbase: 109.4 inL x W x H: 181.7 x 69.9 x 62.0 inLegroom F/R: 41.3/35.9 inHeadroom F/R: 39.6/38.6 inCargo accommodation (seats up/down): 34.3/67.3 cu ftCurb Weight: 3274 lbEPA ammunition economy, estimated (city/highway/combined): 44/40/42 mpg
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