Toyota Prius Sneaks into US Best Selling Cars List

Monitoring pros at J.D. Power report that the most famous Toyota hybrid car - Prius - has sneaked into the US best selling vehicles top10!

Vivat, hybird cars!

Toyota Launches a New Hybrid Car Brand in 2009

Following up on Prius, Toyota Motor Corp. (Japan) plans to start selling a 2nd dedicated brand of hybrid cars in 2009. These guys are going to sell ~ 100,000 of new-but-still-unnamed hybrid cars annually. This new automobile is expected to play a key role in Company’s plans to increase hybrid cars sales to 1 million vehicles a year after 2010.

Waiting for a test drive …

Gasoline Prices Around The Globe

I'd rather move to Caracas and buy a tank! Or a hybrid car.
(click the picture for a larger image)

Smth old, smth new, smth borrowed, smth …GREEN

~ 20 US brides blogged recently about using hybrid cars instead of sparkling limos and roaring Hummers. Some couples ask retailers not to wrap gifts of paper and ribbons. The truly committed-to-environmental-issues are free to choose wooden wedding rings, hemp dresses (instead of silk gowns) and bio-confetti (Ecofetti).

Here’s the new slogan for Toyota: “Prius. Just married”

:-)

Hybrid cars will represent 2% by 2008

According to J.D. Power and Associates, we are all expected to buy ~ 350,000 hybrid cars annually by the year 2008. Over ½ will be trucks. However, hybrid vehicles will represent only about 2% of all amount of US vehicles by 2008.



Farewell, green future... :-(

Google guys know how to get 73.6 miles per gallon!

Google modified some of its cars to plug into any 120-volt power outlet. The new Google-tuned Prius plug-in now gets 73.6 mpg of gasoline, while the original Prius gets 40.9!

These guys have focused on promoting plug-in hybrid electric vehicles – electric and hybrid gas cars that can be plugged into a wall socket to charge the battery.

Google's major drivers are:
- Cut oil and gasoline use
- Reduce CO2 emissions
- Gather research data to help promote this industry
- Accelerate the development and adoption of hybrid cars

Actually Google's fleet vehicles have been previously modified with additional batteries and adapters to let them charge / discharge electricity via plug-in cords. Some companies and amateurs have been able to modify existing hybrid cars to work this way, but they are few.

The major benefit for consumers of plug-in hybrid cars is the ability to run (almost) entirely on electricity with the option of extended-mode gasoline-powered ride.