Gear up for the new Toyota Prius

One of the pioneers in mass producing hybrid cars, Toyota has come a long way by rolling out the Prius. You cannot ignore the fact that more and more people are now opting for hybrid cars where for a little bit more you get to save a lot more on fuel consumption. Make no mistake about this, Toyota started producing the Prius for more than 10 years now (12 years to be exact).

If you haven’t already know, the Toyota Prius has become synonymous with eco-friendly cars around the world with Brad Pitt reportedly owning one and many others who are out to demonstrate their love for the environment. The latest version of the Prius comes with the 1.8liter 16 valve DOHC engine with Toyota’s own VVTi system. The car boosts out 98 horsepowers at 5,200rpm and 142Nm at 4,000rpm. If you want power and acceleration, look elsewhere, this car is all about economy and eco-friendliness.

The design of the car is unique and you can pretty much tell that this car is not your average conventional sedan car. In fact, the modern design exudes its own personality in this one although some has identified the Prius with the Altis, take note that this car is anything but one.

Reported to be priced around RM170,000, the Malaysian distributor UMW Toyota is looking to launch the new Prius next week. This came about with the very positive sales of the vehicle in Japan itself and Toyota is known to have been trying to meet the demand of the market with almost 180,000 orders in the first month of rolling out. To better its driving efficiency, the car comes in 3 different modes. Power Mode is where you want to have performance and acceleration at your control no matter how minimal that would be, Eco Mode helps you to improve the fuel economy of our car where the response on the accelerator is minimized while the air-conditioning system is also reduced. Of course there is the EV Mode which forms the nucleus of this car and runs fully on battery power.

The car comes with standard keyless entry and ignition, Bluetooth link with your mobile phone, touch-tracer steering wheel and heads up display. Fabric seats and 15 inch tyres are also standard while the solar panel that generates power to operate the cabin vent fan is also included. This clearly is the way forward for drivers as hybrid starts making inwards into automotive markets around the world. the fact that the Prius out-sold every other vehicles in the Japan market in the first month of its launch speaks volumes for itself and with more and more people wanting to use less fuel and indirectly help save the environment, be prepared for more of these cars coming your way.