I have to agree with that. Why show off a 5 year old model at the Auto Show?

Let me be the first of many to bring YAK18 up to speed: the original article speculated that an eight-passenger Prius would announced along with the 2010 Standard Prius at the Detroit Auto show next January.

Huh? I thought I said I agreed that there would be the next generation Prius at the show. Although it may also be the 2010 Yaris Hybrid. Honda has the 8 Pax Hybrid coming out. Maybe someone should bring you up to speed.

Lexus Prius= Prius plus added profit.

8 passenger Prius? Looks real in this picture...

the guy who made that 6 door prius did a hell of a job.

I am sure it was hard to weld and rewire all of that.

Danny who originally posted that pic, you - See what U started ? (thanks for the info)

Thank you for the clarification. It is appreciated.
Do we have any reason to believe the Toyota will or will not be a Prius? Do we have any reason to believe the Lexus will or will not be a variant of the Prius or IS300 ?

Has everyone seen that supposedly new bodystyle Prius in dark blue, you know, the one they keep showing only the side view?

Well....

I WANT ONE of those!!

For some strange reason, I really like that style much better than the current style (which I admit has grown on me).

ZC1

Does anyone know how they plan on offering all these new hybrids when they can'tkeepup with battery production for the models they currently have?

New battery factories.

Lexus will launch a small Prius-based hybrid hatch at next January’s Detroit motorshow, Autocar has learnt from sources in Japan.

The new model is known internally as SAI but will be renamed before it goes on sale and will be based on the next generation Prius, also being shown for the first time in Detroit. The Lexus though will be a plusher, more comfort orientated model with unique and sleeker styling.

According to company sources it will bear some similarities to Toyota’s Concept X shown at the Geneva motor show last March. Most commentators wrongly believed this heralded the design of the next Prius but our sources indicated that it was really designed to showcase themes for the junior Lexus hybrid.

Autocar - Prius-based Lexus for Detroit

If true, it will be interesting to see if Lexus uses any new technology (if any) on their hybrid. Since Lexus is able to sell cars at a substantial premium over Toyota, does a Lexus hybrid give Toyota a chance to try out very new (and very expensive) hybrid technology without losing money on each car sold and possibly even still making a little profit? For example, similar to the Hybrid-X concept, would the Hybrid Lexus also use carbon fiber to greatly reduce weight? Carbon fiber is apparently still much more expensive than steel - so making a carbon fiber Lexus would give Toyota the chance to both prove out as well as ramp up the technology for possibly future use on a Toyota Hybrid while not losing any money by keeping carbon fiber technology limited to the Lexus brand for the time being.

Continuing with the new technology theme. What about a plug-in hybrid Lexus? Adding a 5 Kw-hr Lithium-tech battery pack to make an 80+mpg PHEV appears to add at least $5000 to the cost of the car, which is likely not an issue for a Lexus buyer.

So is Toyota getting ready to sell a super high-tech carbon fiber 80+mpg Lexus hybrid next year for a little less than $40K?