Toyota will preview their production hydrogen powered car at the Tokyo Motor Show next month. Will it get the Prius badge?
Will the new Toyota Hydrogen Fuel Cell car be a Prius? (FCV-R pictured)
We’re getting very close to the proper arrival of the hydrogen fuel cell car, moving from a vastly expensive idea to an (almost) affordable family car.
Bloomberg are reporting that Toyota have been running test drives of their new hydrogen fuel cell car in Japan this week, and it’s about the size of the Prius, has decent handling and dynamics, a range of about 500km on a single fill and produces around 134bhp.
Toyota are aiming to launch their hydrogen fuel cell car to the public as early as next year (2014) and prices are expected to be around $50,000. But what badge will it get?
It seems likely that Toyota will turn to the Prius badge to mark the new hydrogen-powered car as something apart from their main range.
The Prius badge has been used to mark out Toyota’s hybrid cars until now, but with hybrid powerplants now proliferating across Toyota’s regular range of cars it no longer symbolises Toyota’s future direction.
So we’re expecting the new hydrogen Toyota to be the Toyota Prius FCV, signalling the next generation of cutting-edge alternative power vehicles from Toyota.
ensonguncelhaber says
VERY NICE A CAR. ECONOMIC AND EFFICIENT.