TOYOTA SHOWS NEW PRIUS HYBRID WITH MORE POWER RANGE, STYLE

The new Toyota gas-electric Prius hybrid not only comes with more power, acceleration and driving range. It’s also more stylish, scrapping the rather stodgy angular body for a sleekly futuristic look.

Simon Humphries, senior general manager of Global Toyota design who unveiled the car in Tokyo, stressed that the company was still defying the skeptics who keep asking how much longer the Japanese automaker will stick with hybrids in a rapidly electrifying industry.

“Simply because the Prius is an eco-car within everyone’s reach. In order to achieve carbon neutrality, everyone in the world must participate,” he told reporters. “We need ecological solutions within reach of the many. And it needs to start today, not tomorrow.”

The fifth-generation Prius hybrid models will go on sale this winter first in Japan then the U.S. A plug-in version will hit the market next year, according to Toyota Motor Corp. Prices were not announced.

The automaker swapped an older nickel-metal hydride battery for a smaller, lighter lithium-ion battery. The result will be almost double the horsepower, quicker acceleration, and 50% longer range.

The Prius, which first went on sale in 1997, switches back and forth between a gasoline engine and electric motor to deliver a cleaner drive than the models with regular combustion engines.