Filed under: Hybrid, Hatchback, Toyota The first decade of the Toyota Prius - Click above for high-res image gallery As of 2010, the Toyota Prius has been available in North America for a decade, and it remains by far the best selling hybrid both here and around the world. Since its Japanese market introduction 1997, drivers have bought more than 1.8 million of the gas-electric dynamos, with about half of those ending up in the United States (and apparently half of those landing on driveways in the San Francisco Bay area!). The original Prius was a gawky-looking four-door sedan that was slow and often didn't meet up with customer's fuel economy expectations. It wasn't until the second-generation model arrived in 2004 with a new teardop hatchback body style that the Prius really took off. By 2007, cumulative sales topped half a million, with the third generation model arriving two years later offering improved efficiency and better dynamic performance than ever. This year, Toyota has begun to deploy a test fleet of plug-in Priuses with lithium ion batteries with full series production of those versions coming in 2012. While we wait for our future corded Prius models to give us even more pull with our eco-minded friends, we'll join Toyota in celebrating the now-iconic green machine by checking out the historic gallery below. Gallery: Toyota Prius - Decade 1 [Source: Toyota]Continue reading Toyota celebrates a decade of Prius Toyota celebrates a decade of Prius originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Read More...
