Even though the Toyota Prius isn’t exactly associated with high-performance racing vehicles, it’s not a weak car either – and Toyota seem to be stepping up that idea for the 2015 edition, as they have been developing the model around some advanced performance racing parts, taken from the TS040 Hybrid LMP1.
This was confirmed by company president Yoshiaki Kinoshita, who stated that the company has already been using various types of performance-boosting chips in its racing cars, and now some of those are about to be carried over to the next Toyota Prius. It’s interesting to see the company deciding to move things in this direction, although it won’t be the first time that an auto manufacturer has decided to incorporate racing technology in a regular consumer model.
Still, according to the company, this doesn’t mean that the new 2015 Toyota Prius will be a street-illegal powerhouse. Rather, the car will offer a balanced combination of features, but will be able to perform quite well when pushed to the limit by a more aggressive driver. Durability is apparently a major point of focus in the design of the new Prius, although this is nothing new under the sun, as the company has been putting quite a lot of attention on this aspect of the line so far.
Some of the improvements that drivers will see in the 2015 Prius compared to previous versions will be in the fuel efficiency and electric system, which should offer a slightly better performance. This has partly been in response to new regulations which put new rules in place with regards to vehicle fuel consumption.
The new system is supposed to only need around five minutes for a refuel of the hydrogen tank, and can run for over 300 miles on a full charge, which is quite impressive for a car of its class. Needless to say, the new electronic components are likely to thank for this to a large extent, and it seems that Toyota know what they’re doing when it comes to designing a more efficient vehicle that meets consumer demands adequately.
As usual, people have also been wondering what this could mean for the 2016 edition of the car. Toyota have shown a trend of increasing the fuel efficiency by around 10% with each installment of the Prius so far, a trend that will be continued with the 2015 edition, so it’s expected that the 2016 Toyota Prius will feature even more advanced technology to bring its fuel consumption down even more. Of course, there are physical limitations to how low the company can take this – but as technology is progressing, those limits are becoming more and more relaxed as well.