A futuristic highway that can save energy and improve road safety is set to be installed in the Netherlands by mid-2013. Two companies, Studio Roosegaarde and Heijmans Infrastructure, came up with the highway, which includes: glow-in-the-dark road markings painted with photo-luminescent paint which are charged during the day and light up during the night; temperature-responsive paint which indicates slippery roads when temperatures fall below zero; and interactive lights along the highway.
The addition of the new Prius family members has done exactly what Toyota wanted by bringing in new buyers to the Prius pool and increasing Prius Family sales by 73% in 2012. Overall Prius sales increased from 136,463 in 2011 to 236,659 in 2012 - an increase of over 100,000 units!
The Gen 3 Prius "Liftback" still leads in Prius Family sales with 12,536, with the Prius c taking 2nd place with 3,151 units, then the Prius v comes in with 2,992. The only member of the Prius stable to decrease sales from November to December was the Plug-in Prius, coming in last with 1,361.
2013 should be an interesting year for number nerds like me to watch as the Prius family matures into a normal vehicle lineup instead of the "upstart" role it had taken in 2012. Prius liftback sales are down considerably compared to before the addition of the 3 other family members, so we'll have to see if that is a permanent trend or not.
IMHO this was a necessary step to sell versus the other plug-ins that had liquid thermal management. It does send the message though that the batteries are only good for 5 year/60,000 miles instead of the 8 years/ 100,000 miles.
