Road and Driver

Could the Prius and fun finally get along?

BY STEVE SILER

We’ve never gotten too excited about the Toyota Prius around here. On one hand, as an extreme fuel-sipper with a distinctive design and contrarian appeal, the Prius is laudable in the manner with which it eschews traditional luxury and conspicuous speed in favor of high-tech eco features, utter thrift, and unconventional hatchback living. On the other hand, with skinny tires, a loud cabin, terrible rear vision, and a boomy ride, the Prius has been the exact opposite of fun to drive. Indeed, efficiency and green image aside, considered as a plain ol’car, the Prius has represented little more than an expensive Corolla.

Toyota has been relatively fine with that, for there are plenty of shoppers seeking the automotive equivalent of an Energy Star appliance for their transportation needs, and Toyota has wooed more than a million into Priuses so far. For 2010, however, Toyota has stepped up the game, not just updating the styling considerably, but veritably pouring engineering talent (some 200 engineers’ worth) into making countless changes intended to make the Prius both more powerful, more efficient, and—get this—more fun to drive. Plus, there are those impressive fuel-economy ratings: an official EPA-estimated 51 mpg city, 48 mpg highway, and 50 mpg combined.

Transformed? Not Quite

Did Toyota succeed? Now that we’ve had a chance to sample the 2010 Prius along the scenic and winding roads around Napa, California, we can say that it did achieve those three goals. A welcome helping of grunt (okay, maybe grunt is too strong a word) has been injected into the Prius’s vastly improved hybrid powertrain, which mates a larger, 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine to an 80-hp electric motor and a 650-watt nickel-metal-hydride battery pack for a combined power rating of 134 hp, up from 110 for the 2009 model. Furthermore, a new engine management system allows for three driving settings—Battery, Eco, and Power. Toyota also added a 17-inch wheel-and-tire option to liven up the handling.

Keep Reading: 2010 Toyota Prius - First Drive Review

Two new big-promise electric vehicles head for the New York show.

BY DAVID GLUCKMAN

It’s good to set goals for yourself. The Inizio EVS aspires to be “one of the fastest American-made electric sports cars of our future.” That shouldn’t be too tough; all is has to do is not be theslowest vehicle in what is admittedly a rather small category. It will be an even easier task given that EV Innovations, the company behind the Inizio, already builds a model called the Rush that’s claimed to have a top speed some 60 mph shy of the Inizio’s 170.

But sometimes goals are made in haste and don’t quite work out. Take, for example, EV Innovations itself. The company recently changed its name from Hybrid Technologies after what we believe was the realization that, well, they never made hybrids. They’ve built their business on a line of production cars converted to plug-in electric power, including the PT Cruiser (known as Surge), Smart (Dash), and Mini (Flash).

Keep Reading: EV Innovations Inizio EVS and Wave - Auto Shows