What the 2016 Prius Should of Been ...

That Mercedes was certainly hit w/ the ugly stick, drag coefficient aside.

 

should of been?

 

IMHO the front of that car, with false grill and radiator shutters (open and close for efficiency could easily be morphed onto the front of the gen IV. Why they decided the hideous mirai looked good and part of the bad looks added to the prius we will never know. Still aero wise the font can be imporved this way easily.

The back of the gen IV, its busy and seems to have these wierd tail fin lights. Its just like a 10 year old or homer simpson designed it. IMHO the split wing in my gen III looks fine from the outside, but obstructs vision from the inside. You probably can design a back that looses only a little cargo room but looks good and provides better visibility. Give it led's in the lights, but not those tail fin monstronsities I'm seeing on the show car.

The tesla model S is as aerodynamic as the gen III, the mercedes cla in aero form (europe only) is more aerodynamic. Both are good looking cars. I don't think the gen IV is as ugly as the mirai or the leaf, but aerodynamics were not consulted for the wierd grill and lights and creases, some designer though they looked good. NS4 looked much better IMHO.

 

I liked this concept alot more then the real 2016 version.

 

There's a new kid on the block. Honda just revealed (perhaps even worse than the Gen IV reveal) the 2016 Civic. As with Toyota very little was given along the lines of specs. But... they will be bringing a 5 door hatchback to the game. They also said they are expecting to get over 40 mpg highway. While I'd really like to get over 50 mpg 40 mpg is my low threshold. I'll be watching for more info on that hatchback. With the Gen IV not being available for purchase until 2016 we have about 4 months or so to compare other cars. I'm also interested in the EPA numbers, and price, for the Rav4 Hybrid.

Sure the Civic won't be getting anywhere near the 55 mpg that we expect from the Gen IV. But for me the Civic has gauges in front of the driver, and if the hatch back offers 20 cu ft of cargo space, I'll be very interested. Honda Civic prices are usually thousands less than the base Prius too. Very interesting.

 

Rav4 hybrid EPA numbers have already been released I think and is marginally better than the NX300h in terms of efficiency and emissions. However I am seeing 0-60 performance figures of sub 9 seconds being quoted around.

FYI I am also looking out for updates on the Toyota C-HR which was confirmed for production at Frankfurt, the production model is going to be previewed in Geneva Autoshow 2016 next March. The significant point here is that the Rav4 will have the current generation HSD and 2.5L ICE found in Lexus but it is confirmed that C-HR will have TNGA and the Gen4 Prius Internals which will be way better overall.

 

There isn't much rear seat headroom or cargo room in an airfoil shape. Airfoils are great for drag, they don't lend themselves well to cars which have a primary goal of moving people and cargo.

 

My point was having the maximum thickness point forward of center doesn't make the car ugly.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I personally like station wagons with flat roofs - attractive and practical.

 

It doesn't necessarily make it ugly but my perception of beauty is influenced by function.
Moving the maximum thickness point forward is usually bad news for rear seat headroom, rear seat access and space utilization. Making a car longer to try to compensate makes it harder to fit into tight garages and parking spaces.

 

The videos of the sales manuals show more back seat headroom, both up and back.

 

I've seen comments that headroom was fine but it's all in where and how you measure it so I'll wait and see. If head room is Ok but the seats have dropped a lot to achieve it or getting in and out has become a problem, I wont be thrilled. Hopefully all will be fine.

Do you have a link to the sales manuals? I don't recall seeing them.

 

2015 Frankfurt/IAA Auto Show Prius Second Showing | Page 7 | PriusChat

 

Reports from the unveiling say that the seat heights have been lowered noticeably.

 

Which is puzzling. How did they lower the seats *and* get the hybrid battery to fit under there?

 

Lots of possibilities the most likely of which are: change the shape of the unibody, change the shape of the battery, make the seat cushion thinner.

 

Are you sure? I recall seeing the image of a back seat passenger and clearance dimensions, but how to infer there's "more"?

 

It looked to me like those dimensions (which were in the few tens of millimeters) were a comparison to the gen 3.

 

Without knowing exactly what points the measurements were made between and under what conditions I could not compare them to my Gen 3.