New Toyota Prius may be coming soon

The Toyota Prius has gone down in the books as one of the absolute hybrid pioneers. With the first generation Prius presented in 1997, Toyota had its hands on the first mass-produced hybrid. uh, in 1997? Certainly, the first Prius appeared about three years before it came to Europe, already on the market in its home country Japan. The Prius has been working on its fourth generation for some time now. Seven years, to be exact. The Prius and its optically and technically different plug-in hybrid brother have already been facelifted and that means that the next step in the Prius timeline is the arrival of a new generation. Toyota announces the arrival of a car that has to reinvent ‘the hybrid’ through three plates. It will be unveiled on November 16, and if it is indeed the new Prius, given the history of the model, it can best be labeled as ‘a thing.’

The fourth generation Toyota Prius has been running since 2015.

Not only the ‘hybrid reborn’ that we see on two design sketches makes us suspect that we will see the new fifth generation Toyota Prius on November 16. The new model has a teardrop-shaped silhouette and a strongly rising shoulder line towards the back. It is striking that Toyota gives the Prius a form of the family face for the first time in years. Where the Prius has always had a strong face of its own in recent years, the new model seems to have a front that you know from the bZ models. Will Toyota, in addition to a hybrid Prius, also come up with a fully electric variant for the first time that it hangs on the bZ label? Who all say it. On the other hand, it is quite possible that Toyota has done everything possible with the new Prius to make it the most efficient hybrid in the world and therefore has not been distracted by preparing the car for the arrival of an electric powertrain.

Toyota Prius sales figures (2009 – 2022)

Anyway, on November 16 we’ll know if we’re dealing with the new Prius at all. Then it will also become more clear about the powertrains, so also about the possible return of a plug-in hybrid variant. In the Netherlands, almost 48,000 copies of the Prius have been sold since 2000. The car had its peak year in 2009, when 8,326 units left the Dutch showrooms. Prius sales in the Netherlands have declined particularly sharply in recent years, partly due to the arrival of models from other brands with hybrid powertrains. In addition, the hybrid Auris and later Corolla within the Dutch Toyota range for extremely fierce competition. In 2014 Prius sales fell from 3,730 in 2013 to just 286. This undoubtedly has to do with the arrival of the hybrid second generation Auris that came to our country in mid-2013.