Austrian safety and emission standards - would a US Gen III 2010 Prius conform?

Thank you, Google

 

The US SULEV is more stringent than Euro5. I do believe the US version of the Prius has a vapour recovery system which the Euro versions of the gen3 Prius do not (though some Euro cars do).

Regarding fuel, this has been discussed on this forum before and I believe the Euro version states 95 RON/91 US purely because in most of Western Europe this is the lowest unleaded fuel available.

There are a few different options on the US/Euro Prius such as the US version having auto locking doors, climate control in farenheit, no rear fog light etc. The Euro version gets the Headup Display HUD which is soo handy.

Otherwise they are pretty similar.

 

There are two cases you have to think about:

1) You keep your house in the States and your address stays valid. You just rent an appartment here.

In this case your car keeps the US plates and you are still paying the insurance in your country. This is like you'd going on a long worldwide trip for 1-2 years with your car. No need to change anything on your car to be able to drive on our european roads

2) You move everything over here and getting a new address where you paying local taxes, and all the other stuff like any other citicens.

When you then taking over the car you gonna import it into the desired country. This means you have to pay import duties, taxes and VAT (20% in Austria). Emission and pollution is asolutely no problem but you must do a special inspection (expensive) so you finally are getting new localized papers for your car. To pass you need to change parts of your lighting so a white position light exists infront as well as a red fog light must be installed in the rear. For this a wrecked european Prius may be the donor for this rear lights that have the fog light incorporated (there are almost none around).

Your car is fully valid on the EU and Swiss roads but you must have an international insurance fully covering damages or accidents you may causing. There is an international paper from your insurance you have to carry with you together with all the papers that proves that this is your car.

There are some laws depending on the country that say you have to leave the country every second week or once a month to proove you're not really living here. But the most important is that you have a valid address in your homecountry.

 

Although I would guess that the emissions standards are fairly comparable across the board, there are definitely country specific safety issues. For example, Daylight Running lights are not available in the US Prius but are mandatory in Canada, and I believe also in the EU.

 

Yes and no.

They have been mandatory in Scandinavian Countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark) for about 30 years and have only recently (Feb 2011) become a legal requirement for new cars in the rest of the EU.

Most Volvo's and older Saabs (before GM) have had them since they were required in Sweden but other manufacturers haven't bothered. However, in the last couple years or so many new models have them as standard in anticipation of the Feb 2011 deadline - in particular VW's, Audi's and some Fords.

Bizarrely the gen3/2010 Prius doesn't have them or an easy option to fit them.

 

DRL are mandatory in our country for couple of years and my Prius which was purchased in 2009 has them already installed.

 

I don't doubt you. The Canadian version does too and probably the Scandinavian ones also. Thing is, if they're not wired at manufacture then they can't be easily added. It's not as simple as just inserting a relay of switching on an option in the management computer.

My understanding is that the car needs a complete wiring loom and other items - so it's not an easy diy job.

I am considering getting a kit which will illuminate the full beam at 30% or 50% like on the VW Golf as I think that looks much better than those dreadful cheap aftermarket led kits you can get.

 

I feel that we may have different understanding of DRL. There are additional lights and stock headlights that turn on automatically when ign is on. So do you have additional ones in Slovenia? I saw an Italian car last week with addons but they looked like a dealer or the owner has some installed by himself. Please, post pics if you have some.

 

When my light switch is on "Auto" position, my regular lights turn on when my car is on.

 

you don't need drl in austria.
my gen2 had them, my gen3 doesn't.
i don't like to say it, but mr. swizerland is right. in your situation i would just take the prius on a "vacation" to our country. converting it into an eu-prius might be quite expensive and complex.
i don't know what to do about the speedometer. can you switch the us-mph to the eu-km/h? probably you will have to install some extra gauge to meet the local requirements.

where do you stay? vienna, graz, linz, salzburg...?

@sa68ta: one can have the toyota dealer program the drl. usually in austria they deliver with drl default off.

 

Yes, there's a button. We've used it to switch when traveling through Canada.

 

My only concern here would be insurance. I am pretty sure that a European insurer can't provide anything more than temporary coverage (2 weeks or so) to a vehicle registered elsewhere (USA in this case) and with a foreign, non EU licence holder.

The other side of the coin is that I'm not sure a US insurer will be able to extend coverage to Europe or infact whether they're legally able to do so.

You might be able to get specialist insurance from Lloyds or similar but I'm sure you'd be paying for the privilege! It might be cheaper to convert the car and get local coverage.

You really need to check with a, your existing Insurer and b, the Austrian transport department.

You do not want a heavy fine or cause an accident AND then find you're up a certain creek!

Finally, if you're moving due to being in the US Military then they should help and assist you with making your vehicle compliant. There's a US base near me and there are thousands of US cars in my town. They have something like 6 weeks to get compliance and registered here and have the yellow front lights changed to white and the amber turn signals (red turn signals are illegal) at the back (usually by fitting amber bulbs into the reversing lights). The US Military do this at their own expense for their employees.