Toyota to GM: We Will Bury You in Priora!

by Robert Farago

Published: July 25th, 2008

Just kidding. Toyota wouldn't say that, what with Motown's implosion about to force the transplants to paint themselves as nativists. But even if they aren't saying it, they're doing it. The Nikkan Kogyo [via Automotive News, sub] reports that the Japanese automaker is shifting non-Prius production out of its Tsutsumi plant to build as many gas – electric vehicles as they can (presumably without working their employees to death). No question: ToMoCo's going Hell for leather. Last year, they sold 281,300 Priora. With these changes, they'll be cranking-out at least 480k units. By the time a single example of GM's Hail Mary-shaped plug-in electric – gas hybrid hits the streets, Toyota will be building their fuel-sipper stateside. ToMoCo will have amped-up (so to speak) worldwide Priora production to 1m unit p.a. Whilst shunning the grammatical consensus on Prius pluratization established by TTAC's Best and Brightest, AN reports that Toyota built "320 Priuses in China last year." What's that all about?

Robert Farago

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Rudiger on Jul 26, 2008
T2 Says: "The majority of Priora are less than five years old."To date, there have been very few battery failures since the Prius first went into production in 1997. The batteries of the current Prius are warranted for 100k miles or 8 years. Toyota aimed for a service life in excess of 150k miles and 10 years. To achieve this, Toyota has designed the system to keep the battery in a state of charge between 40-60%, which allows the battery to match the service life of all other major vehicle components. Of the minimal amount of failures, the vast majority have been due to other than 'natural causes', such as an accidental breach of the battery case or overuse of the battery through the overriding of the factory control mechanisms, i.e., aftermarket installation of an 'EV' button. Even so, Toyota is very sensitive to the issue of battery failure and replacement, meaning that even though a Prius battery may have failed under a non-warranty situation, Toyota is still replacing virtually all of those few Prius batteries that have failed free of charge.

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Kjc117 on Jul 26, 2008

Has anyone pre-ordered a Volt? There are plenty of pre-orders for the Prius.

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Tulsa_97sr5 on Jul 26, 2008

Sherman Lin Says: According to Edmunds testing the Prius shines in city stop and go travel not the highway If you are talking about the article where they compared the prius to the VW TDI and focus and something else, the prius was really close to the VW on highway, and killed everything in all other circuits they drove. The difference in hwy MPG wasn't enough to cover the premium for diesel IIRC. As for a bunch of the other posts, I'm constantly surprised that the same old Prius FUD has to be debunked in every thread that mentions the name. On other boards I expect it but no here. {cough, autoblog cough} Oh and anyone who is a member on truedelta (if you aren't join now) check out the prius results for another good reason they are popular. One of the most reliable cars on the road.

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Menno on Jul 28, 2008

Hi eastaboga, hey, you need to do a fact check before posting. Stating that the battery pack in the Prius weighs 400 pounds is erroneous; it weighs 130 pounds. Take away a Detroit-esque cast iron engine block (Prius has an alloy block), huge lead acid battery (Prius has such a small 12 volt battery as a back-up for the 16 cpu's, it is actually a garden tractor battery size/group), and you can easily see why Prius weighs under 3000 pounds. Now, go to Edmunds.com and search and search for hours, and try to find ANY OTHER MIDSIZED CAR WHICH WEIGHS AS LITTLE AS THE PRIUS. Won't find one. Sorry, not trying to "shout" - I'm actually sitting in a B&B in Jasper Alberta having fun - have been out of touch for almost a week - it's great. No cell, no email, no news, no web, no work. Just incredible scenery. So all I have here is my VERY little Asus Eee PC - and the keyboard is equally tiny. Hence now and again the keyboard gets accidentally put on all caps. Takes so long to hunt & peck, no point i9n going back to redo. Sheesh I'm away for a week and come back to the ssame old same old lies and misconceptions about the Prius.

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