Photo: Chasing Cars
Not sure how many of you remember this, but there was a time when the Toyota Prius was as hot in some circles as Tesla is today globally. The hybrid car, perceived by friends of the environment as a game-changer, was at the center of an intense campaign to promote a greener type of vehicle. Sure, it was also the star of a flood of jokes, but let’s not get into that.
Toyota introduced the Prius in 1997 as the world’s mass-produced hybrid vehicle, “just in time for the 21st century,” as the carmaker said back then. It used a 1.5-liter gasoline engine backed by an electric motor, making it run on 5.1 liters of fuel for every 100 km (46 mpg), and release into the air 120 grams of CO2 for every km CO. And at the time, that was quite something.
It’s hard to say how much the arrival of the Prius changed the world, but look around you and you’ll instantly noticed it did. There are now countless hybrids and EVs on the roads, and soon enough more of them will be made than solely ICE-powered cars. But how would our world have looked like had the Prius arrived sooner, say in the 1960s?
The most likely answer is that perhaps the zero-emission new car fleet target many countries in the world are targeting for the middle of this century would have probably already been met.
As for how it might have looked, the Prius was never a car easy on the eyes. But one made decades ago might have taken another path for evolution. Instead of the rather shapeless body and unappealing stance, maybe we would have got something that resembles a third-generation Corona – at least this is the face the 1960 Prius was given by our friends over at Chasing Cars, who are responsible for the rendering you see above.
It’s hard to say how much the arrival of the Prius changed the world, but look around you and you’ll instantly noticed it did. There are now countless hybrids and EVs on the roads, and soon enough more of them will be made than solely ICE-powered cars. But how would our world have looked like had the Prius arrived sooner, say in the 1960s?
The most likely answer is that perhaps the zero-emission new car fleet target many countries in the world are targeting for the middle of this century would have probably already been met.
As for how it might have looked, the Prius was never a car easy on the eyes. But one made decades ago might have taken another path for evolution. Instead of the rather shapeless body and unappealing stance, maybe we would have got something that resembles a third-generation Corona – at least this is the face the 1960 Prius was given by our friends over at Chasing Cars, who are responsible for the rendering you see above.
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