By John Oxley
Toyota New Zealand has revealed its bold plan to bring the cost of electric vehicle ownership more affordable – importing used Prius plug-in hybrids via its Signature Class network.
Currently electric vehicles in general are premium-priced, with even the lowest plug-in, Mitsubishi’s Outlander PHEV plug-in hybrid, coming in at just short of $60,000, while the lowest-priced pure plug-in EV is the small three-door Renault Zoe at $76,716.
Toyota’s Steve Prangnell says the intention is to source Prius hybrid plug-ins from Japan and offer them for sale in the $35-40,000 price range. The vehicles, which would have less than 25,000km on the clock, would be fitted with new batteries, refurbished at Toyota’s Thames Vehicle Operations plant, and would have an English user manual and controls.
Steve said Toyota’s next generation Prius Prime plug-in hybrid was in the pipeline, but this would be a premium model.
The Prime, shownearlier this year, is wider and longer than the current Prius, although basically built on the same platform as the latest Prius regular hybrid launched here last year.
However, it has a different, more futuristic, front end and new tail light design, as well as reduced coefficient of drag to cut fuel/power consumption. The hybrid power train is the same as that of the current Prius, but the battery pack has received a big boost by doubling the capacity to enable an electric power-only range of around 35km, and a top speed of 135km/h. Like the current Prius, it can also run on a combination of petrol and electric power as well as electric alone.
The big news, though, is that it can be recharged in less than three hours from a 240V outlet.
Going back to the used cars which are currently being imported, these are based on the model year 2014 Prius, and are fitted with a regular Prius hybrid power train.
However, they have additional traction batteries, and these cars be recharged at home or office using an ordinary socket. This gives an electric-only range of between 16 and 24km, after which it reverts to normal hybrid operation.
