The Prius c is Official: > 50 MPG City, 1.5-liter Engine, Pretty Colors

I hear what you are saying, but consider this: I went across country and back on motorcycle, going on some of the roads you did, and it doesn't have spare. Granted the plug kit and pump were packed under the seat, and the tires were regularly checked for nails. In all years driving, close to 1,000,000mi spread amongst cars/vans/trucks/motorcycles, I've only seen one catastrophic failure which could not be plugged. It was a muffler hanger which punctured sidewall and deflated tire in <20sec.

Most of tire blowouts which you cannot fix are due lower pressure and overload, and it is really hard to let tire go low with TPMS nowdays.

We owned cars which went over 200,000mi and had never had spare taken out. Not that they did not have flats, it was just they were easier to fix w/o taking off. Our 2010 Prius with 70K had spare out, but it was only b/c I was in a hurry to get to work.

 

I haven't posted in forever.
Recently I had a chance to sit in the Lexus CT200H in the showroom. The "C" looks a lot like this car.
The 200H windshield is claustrophobic as is the driving cockpit, and I had difficulty getting my six foot frame into the front seat.
The back seat entry is hampered by the rear wheel well and felt like limbo manoeuvres were required for entry/exit. The rear leg room was non-existent.

If the "C" is indeed like this car, I couldn't consider it an everyday driver and wonder just how well it will sell, pretty colours or not. Is Lexus going to continue to build the 200H? Our dealership still hasn't put one on the road.

 

lol. How about Caracas? People create lanes between the lanes. Or what about shangai? Lots of places in the world. A better accelerating car is often safer. 8 instead of 10 seconds to 60 would be much better, I have short on ramps here, you can stay on surface streets if the on ramp is too short, but the desire for more acceleration is not a frivolous one, nor are americans the worst drivers on the planet. I hapily have driven on the autobahn, but would never drive in venezula or china, and only motorcycles thailand, traffic just sucks in bangkok.

 

Tell your dealers to ship their CT200h cars down to Southern California. The dealers here are selling them as soon as they get them in. I can't imagine the Prius c and the CT200h would be built on the same frame. The Prius c is a smaller car.

I could see you in a Smart Car or a Scion iQ.

 

The c will be a great commuter car for anyone that can stand to fit in a small car. The Sonic is 2 inches longer overall, but the c's wheelbase is almost an inch longer. I will love to trade my tire devouring 05 for one of these, if the drive is worth the while.

Hopefully the tires will run round and quiet for more miles than than they do on our current Prius. 5 sets of tires in 123,000 miles and each set only stayed quiet for about 5 to 7 thousand miles. The racket by 15,000 miles is deafening and then it gets worse. Toyota needed to provide a more tire friendly suspension with this car or better yet, a hover system (maglev?) to take tires out of the equation altogether.

The c should be quite a bit larger than a Smart/iQ. Probably spacious by comparison, even. 6 plus footers should be looking at the way more voluminous v. The c probably stands for cramped or maybe clautrophobic? I'll postpone judment until I drive one.

 

What tires are you putting on? That sounds like somewhat short tire life but it's impossible to compare w/people in other regions as some areas have roads that are harder on tires than others.

I can tell you from personal experience, some regions have roads that are much louder too (e.g. Seattle area has louder roads than the SF Bay Area).

 

C is one size smaller than CT200h.

You are going to love it. ha!

 

I agree. You need to reconsider your tire choices. I just broke 200,000 miles and none of my tire sets lasted less than 50K. I`ve never considered the Prius to be a quiet car like my prior Camrys. It just doesnt have the sound-dampening characteristics of the Camry ;(weight savings).

 

Prius Aqua just launched... 0-100kmh in 10.7s which is 1.3s faster than Yaris HSD, meaning significant differences in weight I guess... Toyota project head claims interior room of Corolla, and trunk is 305l, again bigger than normal Yaris meaning no space lost at all.

 

complete hybrid system fits under back seats, nothing in the trunm at all.

 

The Aqua is now available on the official Toyota Japan website. Here's the spec page:
http://toyota.jp/aqua/001_p_001/spec/spec/index.html

 

interesting... larger than Yaris Diesel... and lighter. With Yaris diesel already being among lightest if not the lightest car in the class.

1050kg Prius c vs 1085 for Yaris diesel. Thats pretty good advancement, obviously, more high tensile steel and aluminium are being used.

 

HSD becomes lighter as well. Electric motors replacing transmission. Carrying less fuel offsets the HV battery weight. This is the way of the future.

 

^^ Yep. When the 'C' was pre-announced I guessed it would the first Toyota to be a serious challenger to the European tendency to buy diesel cars, and I continue to think the car will be a runaway hit in Europe.

 

... except for the fact that Europe gets the Yaris hybrid instead!

 

$21,700 in Japan market. Sales in Japan begin today.

Bloomberg

 

"The Aqua uses the same 1.5-liter Toyota Hybrid System II engine found in some of the most recent Prius cars, which has returned a touch over 35 km/l or 82mpg in Japanese tests. This will be revised to between 50mpg and 60mpg for the US launch though."

Can anyone explain the 30mpg discrepancy in the last part?

 

^^ EPA vs JC-08

 

its like when you hear diesels get 60 MPG and then when they come here, they struggle to do 30 MPG

 

Interestingly enough, one of the press pieces quoted head engineer saying it is coming to 50 countries by next year.... which means europe for sure .

So Europe will probably have Yaris and Prius c.

Now i figured it out... Prius c is based on Verso-s Platform, hence slightly larger than Yaris. Just like both Yaris and (Yaris) Verso-s sell, so will Yaris Hybrid and Prius-c.

Main reason to have both would probably be pricing - Yaris Hybrid will probably be more affordable by 10-20%, just because it is produced in Europe, and shares more bits with car that is produced in huge numbers.


What I still find interesting is that official numbers for Prius c are 10.7 0-62mph.
All the UK reviews said that Yaris Hybrid (preview) is 12s car, and slower than normal petrol that is 11.7 0-60... while this is significantly quicker, actually as quick as normal Prius. I thought it would be weight, but I really doubt it... probably that UK journos simply dont know Wth they are writing about (as usual).