NAIAS: Toyota Prius C

by Derek Kreindler

Published: January 10th, 2012

The Toyota Prius c made its North American debut today at NAIAS, boasting a 53 mpg city rating, said to be the highest of any vehicle that isn’t a plug-in hybrid. The Prius c will also supposedly return 46 mpg on the highway, for a combined 50 mpg.

The Prius c is also tiny. At 157 inches long it’s two inches longer than an original Miata, and weighs 2,500 lbs. That’s 542 pounds less than a regular Prius and 19 inches shorter. Power is meager at 99 horsepower and 82 lb-ft of torque. EV mode will only work at speeds of under 25 mph and for distances of under 1 mile.

All the usual in-car electronics like music streaming via Bluetooth, Toyota’s Entune infotainment system, an iPod jack and a 6.1 inch touch screen come standard. Anyone buying this car is far more interested in these sorts of things as opposed to performance. Even though it’s likely to be sleep medication on 4-wheels, the Prius nameplate alone will help it sell to the kind of folks parodied by Stuff White People Like when it goes on sale in spring of 2012.

Photos courtesy of Julie Hyde

Derek Kreindler

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7 of 33 comments

Grzydj on Jan 10, 2012

So it's about the same size as the original Pruis but gets better fuel economy. Cool I guess.

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FJ60LandCruiser on Jan 10, 2012

I am somewhat disappointed by the lack of fuel economy bump up from the regular Prius. While I understand that squeezing more from hybrids is a game of diminishing returns, I can't help but wonder if the same car with a tiny diesel would get similar fuel economy and be substantially cheaper to manufacture and cost less to the consumer. Or for that matter a diesel hybrid. If we're going tiny, why not explore alternative engine types to squeeze even MORE mpgs? Regardless, I dread the thought of hustling this toy up a highway onramp to merge with F250's going 80.

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- Ciddyguy on Jan 10, 2012
  
  "Regardless, I dread the thought of hustling this toy up a highway on ramp to merge with F250′s going 80." For much of the 1990's, I drove a small, 1983 Honda Civic hatch all over, highways and over hill and dale, including 2 trips to Medford Oregon via I-5 from Tacoma Washington and had no issues with it. It did 70MPH just fine and would maintain that speed all day long If I let it and it'd still return me AT LEAST 35MPG while doing so (1500cc CVCC that did all of 67HP, mated to a 5spd manual). Today, I drive an extended cab Ranger and am working on moving back to something similar in size to that old Civic or slightly larger, but no larger than a B segment vehicle though as I live in the city and it'd be my only car.
  
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- Bumpy ii on Jan 10, 2012
  
  re: diesel- highway mileage would be similar, city mileage would be significantly worse. Diesel hybrids seem to be mostly an either/or proposition. IIRC the diesel doesn't take well to the start-stop cycling that hybrids engage in. re: merging- It seems that most Americans have been trained by generations of raucous, low-revving domestic engines to be afraid of flooring the gas pedal, and terrified of allowing an engine to get above 4,000 rpm for any length of time. Absent those fears, even a smart car can handle most onramps just fine.
  
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- Shaker on Jan 11, 2012
  
  Last night, I tried to pull out of a restaurant on a bend of a road with a 35 MPH speed limit, when a gasoline tanker truck barreled around the corner doing 50+. It was all I could do to get my manual-tranny Elantra into reverse gear to prevent getting the front of my car ripped off, as he didn't even swing out to give me any room. Much scarier than an on-ramp scenario, and I shudder to think if I had (thinking that my car had the acceleration) pulled out - I would have gotten rear-ended very hard (no snickering there). I guess what I mean is that with the Prius, I would have known that I had a slow car, and not pulled out until I had a long look at that bend (which is partially hidden by parked cars).
  
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- JuniorMint on Jan 11, 2012
  
  I have a first-gen xB with a paltry 105 hp, so I've been hearing about the OnRamp Problem since 2005. With 80K on that car, I think for every onramp experience I've wished for a bit more power, there are 20 times I've been crawling up the tailpipe of a housewife's Tahoe doing 45 MPH because she's too busy on her phone call to pay attention to the merge we have to execute in 3 seconds. Trust me: if you have enough brain activity to aim for gaps in traffic, you'll be fine.
  
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- NormSV650 on Jan 11, 2012
  
  @JuniorMint That doesn't sounds safe at all.
  
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