Ever notice that you your bladder seems to shrink when its cold outside? Apparently, the Toyota Prius feels your pain, and while we don't have any good solutions to report for your own personal problems, Toyota has found an easy fix for its hybrid. Unlike previous generations of Toyota's fuel saver, the new 2010 model won't have an underperforming bladder when it's cold outside.

Since its introduction back in 2001, Toyota has equipped the Prius with a synthetic fuel tank bladder that collapsed as gasoline was slowly pumped out of the tank and into the engine. Due to complaints that the last-gen car wasn't able to take its full 11.9 gallon fuel allotment whenever the temperature was below 70-degrees, the third-generation Prius comes equipped with a more conventional rigid fuel tank made from lightweight resin. In order to retain its coveted low-emissions rating in California, the latest Prius also reportedly features an improved vapor-recovery system that will help reduce hydrocarbon emissions.



[Source: Chicago Tribune]

By now, we've all probably seen the commercials from Toyota's latest marketing campaign for the 2010 Prius hybrid... and we've all probably developed an opinion about them. Any time an advertising campaign is as interesting and different as this one, there are bound to be opposing viewpoints either favoring or strongly disliking them.

Fortunately for Toyota, it seems that more people like the commercials for the 2010 Prius than not. In fact, Toyota's "Harmony" spot topped Nielsen's Top 10 Most-Liked New Ads list in May, and the "MPG" commercial came in at #3. For what it's worth, an advertisement for Coke came in at #2.

If you've somehow managed to miss these commercials on television since the campaign was launched back in May, we've pasted three of them after the break for your viewing pleasure. Oh, if you don't like the American marketing campaign, there's always the Japanese commercials with Superman – or better still, check out Casual Mafia's "In My Prius" sendup.

[Source: Advertising Age via Prius Chat]

The third generation Toyota Prius is just ramping up its marketing mojo, and one place you'll see plenty of the gold standard hybrid is at the gas pump. Toyota is hooking up with Gas Station TV to present "Prius Neighborhood" television program to the over 1 million unique pumpers viewers that stare at the company's pump-mounted LCD screens while they fuel up.

Prius Neighborhood is the latest effort to intertwine social media with traditional communication tools. Anyone can submit grassroots and community events via the GSTV website, and select events will actually appear at the pump, sandwiched between ads for the 50 mpg hybrid.

Those interested in following events on Prius Neighborhood can do so on Facebook, as well as Twitter at @GSTVevents. The site contains a calender of charity and community events searchable by zip code, and some of the events will be chosen for airing. GSTV airs in over 1,000 gas stations in the US, hitting 22 of the 25 top markets. Hit the jump to view the official press release after the jump.



[Source: IT News Online]

When car buyers think of hybrids, the name that most often springs to mind is the Toyota Prius since it was the first really practical hybrid to come to market and has sold more than any other examples. Yes, of course, the original Honda Insight beat the Prius to market in the U.S. by about six months, but the tiny two-seater sold in equally tiny numbers and had limited appeal beyond hard core hyper milers.

In the coming weeks, Toyota dealers will start getting their first allotments of the all-new third-generation Prius, and while we got to spend a few hours with one on the west coast in March, we just spent a whole week with the new version of this iconic Toyota. While the efficiency of the Prius has never been in dispute, like many other cars from Brand T, its appeal as a driver's car has been, to say the least, limited. For its generation three model, Toyota has not given up on minimizing fuel consumption, but it has sought to make the Prius a bit more appealing on other levels. Read on to find out if the company has succeeded.



Photos copyright ©2009 Sam Abuelsamid / Weblogs, Inc.

To coincide with the official launch of the 2010 Toyota Prius in its home market of Japan, the automaker has unleashed a whole slew of styling and performance upgrades available through Modellista, its in-house tuning arm. There are three separate body kits available that offer varying levels of flair: Modellista Versions 1 and 2 and an Aero Tourer Kit. We're not so sure the exterior bits from the Aero Tourer kit actually improve the car's looks any, but perhaps they improve its already stellar aerodynamics somewhat.

Questionable aesthetics aside, there's also a few aftermarket bits that could potentially improve the car's handling performance, like optional 16-inch alloy wheels and a new set of springs that lower ride height by 20 millimeters. At this point, it's not expected that Toyota will import any of these kits outside of Japan, but, if you're really interested, there's always eBay.



[Source: Modellista via Le Blog Auto]

The Toyota Prius has long been a love-it-or-hate-it design. The sweeping roofline of the hybrid hatch may have been penned to maximize the car's ability to cut through the wind, but its shape is now instantly recognizable to the masses – so much so that Honda has been accused of ripping off the Prius' basic design for its latest Insight (gasp!).

Whether you're enamored or disgusted by the Prius' aesthetic, you'd better get used to the new styling cues.
The 2010 model is the shape of things to come for Toyota, debuting a few new forms that will infiltrate the rest of the automaker's line-up in the near future. Toyota's global design chief, Wahei Hirai, calls the styling of the new Prius "free-form geometrics," and a few of the more prominent elements -- including the hybrid's sharply-creased corners, slit-like front grille and bolder, more pronounced hood badge -- are all bound for future models. Good thing or bad thing? Tell us in the poll after the jump.



[Source: AutoWeek]

The well-publicized battle for hybrid sales supremacy between Honda and Toyota has taken yet another intriguing turn. According to Japan's Nikkei newspaper, Toyota is saying that it expects to take 40,000 preorders in Japan for its new 2010 Prius hybrid ahead of its official rollout in May. For the sake of comparison, the Japanese automaker sold a total of 73,100 Prius hybrids in all of 2008.

More importantly, rival automaker Honda managed to sell about 18,000 copies of its latest Insight hybrid in its first month on sale. By all accounts, Honda was delighted to move that many Insights – the automaker had predicted that it would only sell about 5,000 units for the first month the hybrid was available in Japan.

A few months ago, Honda made a big splash by pricing the smaller, slightly less fuel efficient Insight a few million yen (or a few thousand dollars) below the starting price of the standard-setting Prius. In response, Toyota announced it would keep the previous generation Prius around for at least another year and dropped that model's price to match the Insight.

But that wasn't enough for Toyota – earlier this month, the automaker set the starting price for the new 2010 model at 2.05 million yen ($20,750), which is just about the same as the mid-level Insight. The next chapter: U.S. pricing for the 2010 Prius has yet to be announced. Let the games continue.



[Source: Reuters]

When you sit in the 2010 Toyota Prius, you notice all those little things that provide the "Prius experience" – the shift lever, information screen, center-mounted instrument panel – are all present, but they're slightly different and noticeably improved. The time it takes to adapt to the revised interior is emblematic of the new Prius experience. It's the same oddly shaped hybrid that almost two million buyers love, but it gets better mileage, looks sharper and is packing more technological whiz-bangery than any vehicle this simple to drive has the right to.

We recently tested the 2010 Prius at its North American launch through the vineyard-covered fields and hills surrounding Napa, California. Through it all, the hybrid, officially rated at 50 mpg, performed well and delivered better-than-expected fuel economy. In fact, when we pushed the car's eco prowess by using the EV mode as much as possible and employing a few other tricks, we blew that EPA estimate out of the water by almost 15 mpg. And we weren't alone.



Photos Copyright ©2008 Brad Wood / Weblogs, Inc.

According to the ever-flowing and always active rumormill, Toyota may be working on a new low-cost hybrid to do battle with the revived Honda Insight, which is a bit smaller than its rival from Toyota and undercuts its price by a few thousand dollars (or a few million yen). Likely due in no small part to its low point of entry, Honda managed to move 18,000 Insight hybrids in Japan in its first month on sale, which is well above the automaker's early projections.

The new hybrid from Toyota would use similar hybrid components as the Prius but would use a smaller engine and cost 20-30% less. Even if these rumors are true, Toyota still plans to continue selling its previous-generation Prius in Japan for at least the 2010 model year alongside the new model, which features better performance from an enlarged 1.8-liter engine while still managing to reduce fuel consumption. So far, there's no indication that Toyota will sell a lower-cost hybrid model in the U.S.



[Source: Automotive News - Sub. Req.]

After teasing us for months with photos of switches and boot up screens, followed by a leak of the whole car, Toyota finally dropped the third generation 2010 Prius today in Detroit. We already heard many of the mechanical details over the past year or so, but today it was confirmed that the Prius will get a combined EPA rating of 50 mpg. That's 50 mpg under the new tighter EPA testing method, mind you. The engine has been up-sized to 1.8L with an output of 98 hp and the total net output of the hybrid drive system is 134 hp.

The basic design is still instantly recognizable as a Prius, but the body does have a bit more character than before. Nonetheless the shape is smoother with a drag coefficient of just 0.25. The peak of the roof has now been moved back 4 inches giving the car a slightly less egg-shaped profile and increasing rear headroom. Aside from optional extras like LED headlights and lane departure prevention, the most interesting new option is the solar roof. A roof-mounted photo-voltaic panel will power the air recirculation system when the car sits in the sun, reducing the internal temps and the subsequent load on the air conditioning system. The Prius goes on sale later this spring but pricing hasn't been announced yet. Hit the jump to view video of the live press conference.



Live photos copyright ©2009 Drew Phillips / Weblogs, Inc.