Toyota Reportedly Planning Prius Wagon or SUV With Lithium Battery Pack

Toyota Motor Corp.'s made no secret of it desire to leverage its successful Prius into an entire line of cars - why not make good use of a name that's synonymous with 'hybrid' to so many people?

So its no surprise that a Japanese newspaper - the widely circulated Yomiuri - is reporting  that the automaker plans to launch a Prius sport wagon or sport utility vehicle around the end of next year.

The timing seems spot-on. After all, the industry journal Automotive News reported way back in October of 2007 that Toyota planners had said the 2010 Prius sedan would be followed in a year or so by a wagon version.

That's the year Toyota actually showed us what a Prius wagon might look like with the unveiling of the Hybrid X Concept at the Geneva auto show.

Production would certainly be no stretch.

It doesn't sell any wagons in the U.S., but Toyota builds several for the home market that could provide underpinnings for a Prius hybrid version. A good argument can be built for considering the U.S.-market Venza (right) introduced this year to be a sporty wagon.

As for a Prius SUV - well, what's the Lexus RX 400h except a Prius SUV wrapped in a luxury body? 

A little odd-sounding is the reported choice of a lithium-ion chemistry for the vehicle's batteries - top Toyota officials have been publicly proclaiming for months now that they don't believe lithium-ion batteries are sufficiently cheap or reliable yet for retail use.

But as we've come to see in the past two years, anything's possible and very little is improbable in the brave new automotive world. Prius does have a lithium-ion battery program with Panasonic and could be sitting on a reliability breakthrough it just doesn't want to acknowledge right now.

If prepared as the newspaper reports, the Prius wagon-SUV would have a larger power system and be bigger and heavier than the sedan - all things that call for the extra power and lighter weight a lithium battery brings to the table.

There's no word on whether a Prius wagon/SUV would use a rechargeable, or plug-in, battery system or a conventional hybrid system recharged by the regenerative braking system.

The Yomiuri report, translated and interpreted by the Associated Press, says that Toyota officials in Japan wouldn't comment.

But, as we said, they've commented before that there ought to be more vehicles bearing the Prius name. 

And now's certainly a good time to get started.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Posted by

John O'Dell November 13, 2009, 8:09 AM

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Hybrid, Japan, Toyota

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New Prius SUV, Prius Wagon

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