Geneva 2011: EU Toyota Prius+ MPV Gains Two More Seats Over its US Counterpart [Updated Gallery]

This week in Geneva Toyota revealed its European-market Prius + MPV, known stateside as the Prius V. Instead of five seats, the Euro Prius + will get seven seats when it debuts in early 2012. Also unlike its USDM counterpart, the Prius + gets a three middle row seats that fold individually (instead of our 60/40 split) and a 50/50 folding third-row seat.

The Prius + should burn approximately 5.9 liters / 100 km (using US combined city/highway figures) thanks to its hybrid power train and a drag coefficient of 0.29. It is also the first non-plug-in hybrid Toyota to use a lithium-ion battery pack and, like its Prius sibling, gets EV, ECO, and POWER driving modes.

For more general info on Toyota's Prius MPV, check out our previous post. If that doesn't tickle you, just check out the live pics from the show below.

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Toyota Announces Yaris HSD Concept and New Prius+ MPV with 7-Seats for Geneva Salon

Toyota is going to have an interesting collection of cars at this year's Geneva Motor Show in March as the second and closer to production concept version of the FT-86 rear-wheel drive sports coupe will be joined by the Yaris HSD study and the new Prius+ minivan, which appears to be the European version of the Prius V with seating for seven instead of five.

The Japanese automaker said that the Yaris HSD study represents the next step in the firm's full hybrid roll-out strategy in Europe. The single cropped photo reveals that the car is based on the all-new Yaris supermini, which was unveiled in Japan at the end of December 2010, featuring hybrid-specific styling cues. A production version will follow within the next year or so.

As for the Prius+, Toyota said it's the first car to offer European customers the versatility of 7 seats combined with a full hybrid powertrain, adding that it will boast the lowest consumption of any 7-seat MPV on the market. It remains to be seen if Prius+ is a longer version of the North American Prius V minivan that made its debut at the Detroit auto show in January.

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EV Owners in California to Feel the Shock of Higher Electricity Rates

Woe betide the electric car. Outpaced by their petrol-powered cousins in the 1900s, saddled with heavy and potentially dangerous batteries in the 1970s and crushed in the name of the Almighty Dollar in the 1990s, it’s been a rough road from there to here.

And now, on the dawn of a new age where electric cars seem poised to take their rightful place alongside gasoline cars, the electricity companies are about to throw a wrench into the works. If you live in California and intend to buy a plug-in hybrid Toyota Prius or Chevrolet Volt or an all-electric Nissan Leaf, you could be in for a...shock.

If the energy giants have their way, the Chevy Cobalt, which would have to rate on my list as one of the least desirable cars built by GM, is more economical to own or operate than any of the above. The reason?

Essentially, The California government has approved its energy providers to impose higher rates on customers who exceed, “typical household levels” of energy use all in the name of conservation. So if, for example, you spend eight hours a night recharging your electric car, you’ll find yourself classed as one of these excess customers.

Wham, bam, the electricity companies charge you more than Mr. Joe Public next door who drives a Toyota Sienna and still has to pay for the good oil. And contrary to what you may of heard, it doesn’t matter if you recharge your car at night when the rates are lower; you’re still gonna take a hit to your hip pocket.

And it’s not like the California legislature is rushing to correct this oversight.

Wally Tyner, the James and Lois Ackerman Professor of Agricultural Economics, said that to make the Volt more economical than the Prius or the Cobalt, oil prices would have rise to between $171 and $254 per barrel, depending on which electricity pricing system is being used. Californians for example, pay an average of 14.42 cents per kilowatt hour, which is about 35 percent higher than the national average.

"People who view the Volt as green will pay $10,000 more over the lifetime of the car because it's green," Tyner said. "Most consumers will look at the numbers and won't pay that."

So until you’ve taken a pen and paper and worked out the real cost of owning an EV in California, maybe keep that Geo Metro for a while longer.

Source: Purdue University

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Poll: Should GM give in and call the Volt a hybrid?

Apart from the humorous articles and the plethora of eBay finds we come up with, Carscoop’s bread and butter is automotive news straight from the manufacturer. And as such, we read a lot of press releases. In all the ones I’ve read, General Motors refuses to call the Chevrolet Volt a hybrid. It’s a range extended electric vehicle.

I speculate that it might have something to do with hybrids being uncool (so sayeth GM CEO Dan Akerson) or to avoid comparisons with that other hybrid. You know, the one made by the world’s other biggest car manufacturer.

So let’s hear the cases for and against:

Yes, GM should call the Volt a hybrid and here’s why:

A hybrid, by definition, is a vehicle that has two or more powerplants. In most cases, one is an electric motor and the other is a gasoline engine. There’s no requirement that these run in tandem, or be connected to one another in any way. More than one powerplant and you have a hybrid. And let’s face it: GM isn’t trying to lure buyers away from the Nissan Leaf or the Mitsubishi iMiev; their target is and always has been the Toyota Prius. And what’s the Prius, children? “A hybrid!” In a dumbed down worldview, nobody wanted to buy a Saturn Green Line so this was Option B. The Volt looks like a hybrid, is mechanically like a hybrid and was designed to compete with hybrids. For this, the Volt is one and the same.

No, GM should call the Volt a range extended electric vehicle and here’s why:

The Prius uses its electric motor at low speeds, when idling and when overtaking. The rest of the time it’s running on its gasoline engine alone. On the other hand, the Volt engages its gasoline engine only when its electric motor has run out of juice. Like a WWII submarine limping home on its diesel engines after its batteries have run dry. So if anything, the Volt is like a Nissan Leaf with the added security of a gasoline engine making sure you don’t end up on the hard shoulder, waiting for the AAA man to come along with a very long extension cord. For this, the Volt is a range extended electric vehicle.

So where do you stand? Do you buy GM’s marketing buzz or do you side with the cynics? Cast your vote and leave us a comment.

__________________________________POLL__________________________________

What should GM call the Chevrolet Volt?

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