2007 Toyota Prius Base Hatchback 4-door 1.5l on 2040-cars

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4th-gen Toyota Prius production delayed by 6 months

If you were holding off buying a new car in anticipation of the fourth-generation Toyota Prius arriving in 2015, your wait might be a little longer. Company insiders are claiming that production of the bestselling hybrid is being pushed back from spring to possibly as late as December 2015. Toyota is reportedly still making alterations to make sure everything is just right before it unleashes the all-important, efficient hatch on a waiting public.
According to unnamed sources speaking to Automotive News Europe, the main reasons for the delay aren't completely known. It's believed the engineers are still working on making the hybrid powertrain more efficient and improving the new Toyota Global Architecture modular platform. The insiders claim that the final production prototype of the Prius is still under development, and it might be November before it's finalized. From there, it usually takes around 12 months to tool up and for the first car to roll off the assembly line. It would be another year after that before the plug-in variant starts assembly. The national manager of Toyota Product Communications, Michael Kroll, told AutoblogGreen, "As you might expect, we can't comment on future product plans."
Despite the delay, some potential details have already emerged about the new hybrid. A company spokesperson recently told Autoblog via email that Toyota is engineering the next-gen Prius to have smaller, more power-dense electric motors and greater thermal efficiency. The new modular platform is also rumored reduce weight, and the changes could lead to a targeted 10 percent improvement in fuel economy.

Lexus GX, Toyota Land Cruiser Prado facelifts leaked

The Lexus GX and the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, which isn't sold in the US, have gone without visual updates since the current generation was launched in 2009. But what appear to be patent filing sketches and pictures of the sibling sports utility vehicles' mid-cycle updates have been leaked on a Russian Land Cruiser Club forum.
Major changes to the GX's front end will be made to incorporate Lexus' signature grille. Gone are the awkwardly shaped headlamps and the soft-looking triple-slat grille. The sketch shows the Lexus with a new bumper, lower-profile headlights and a more aggressive, angular grille with one more slat and a gaping lower air-intake opening. The vehicle's profile looks unchanged, but the rear bumper will be reshaped slightly to fit new, better-integrated horizontal reflectors.
The Toyota gets a handful of styling updates as well, including a new front bumper with higher-profile headlamps that look a bit out of place to us. The Prado's profile also looks unchanged, but the rear end gets restyled taillights and a reshaped license-plate enclosure.

Toyota confirms i-Road electric trike for production

The wacky, three-wheeled Toyota i-Road we saw in Geneva earlier this year will be heading to production. But before you run down to your local Toyota dealer looking for one of these all-electric "personal mobility" vehicles, chances are, you'll never actually see one unless you visit Japan.
Announced at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) expo last week, Toyota said that the i-Road would be used as a part of the Ha:Mo car-sharing system in Japan. Weighing in at around 661 pounds, with a 28-mile-per-hour top speed and a two-passenger seating arrangement, the i-Road seems more like a fully enclosed scooter than a car, but it does offer a 30-mile driving range and has a nifty articulating front suspension that leans into corners. As for Ha:Mo, Toyota says that the number of cars in the program will increase from 10 prior to October 1 to 100 by the middle of this month, and the number of stations will almost double from 13 up to 21. Toyota has more details about the car and Ha:Mo in the press release posted below.