Yeah Tideland, I'm guessing the Gen III will follow suit from the Gen II and have a 6 year cycle with the minor refresh at year 3 which it just did for 2012.
It'll be interesting to see how they stagger the life cycles of the Prius models, esp. the PHV. If it's treated as a separate model, it may be delayed a year (even though it shares the same body) (e.g what BMW did with the MINI cabriolet and launched the new one a year after the coupé came out so the old Cab and new coupé were sold along side for 1 year).
So, 2016 for gen4 Prius that is too long to wait to replace my 04. On another note, when Toyota changes to all LI batts will the V do the same and if so when? Many thanks everyone.
With competition from Ford, likely from Hyundai and Kia in about 2 years, I would expect Gen IV in 2 years as a 2015 model or Toyota will debut and have the sweet 2015 Toyota NS4 ready.
If this is their idea of a Red Gen IV, I a all over it! Love it, want to see the inside, outside looks great!
I have often thought of that one, it makes so much sense as far as reducing drag! I wonder how many MPGs that's worth?
Here is an article from 2006 which uses a Metro as a test case: Reflections on side mirrors: testing drag vs. MPG - MetroMPG.com He ended up with a 2.3% increase in MPGs and here is his final observations: Observations Not quite the 3% improvement predicted by my (imperfect) aero/rolling resistance spreadsheet - and I even had a slight "advantage", since those calculations were for removal of only 1 mirror, where I effectively removed one and a half. And it's certainly not as high as the GM numbers would have predicted. Still, it's a pleasant surprise. I'll be keeping my new mirror configuration. Actually, if you do the math (2.3%/1.5 mirrors x 2 mirrors = 3.07%). So, it should improve by about 3% or 1.5 MPGs on a 50 MPG Prius.
The front reminds me of my '73 Pontiac Lemans. It was the same color also until it faded to white in 3 years.
