I like green cars - I like cars that are environmentally friendly, but I've never really like the Toyota Prius. Why? Other Prius-haters cite figures of fuel consumption that apparently aren't that economical, some people say a European diesel is more efficient, Toyota has been accused of halting greencar progress, etc. - but I'm a lot more simplistic. I believe that the latest generation of green cars should be accessible to the wider world, not just green fanatics - green cars should become the "people's car" of the new millenium. But average joes don't want to drive something that looks like my bathroom soap and pretends to be too technologically advanced for simple minds like mine. In this way, the Prius' appeal is limited, and it's environmental impact (although debatable, anyway...) remains limited. Which is sad, and it almost seems like Toyota does this on purpose - the Honda FCX Clarity doesn't look bad, neither does the Chevy Volt (well, it looks more normal than the Prius does, at least give me that). But anyway, this is the new, 2010 Toyota Prius. Basically the story is "more of the same". The new model does refine the concept slightly however.

It doesn't get lithium-ion battery technology like the Chevrolet Volt (the Toyota remains with nickel-hydride), but it has become even more fuel efficient, even though the 1.5 Litre petrol engine has been upsized to a more powerful 1.8 Litre. Hopefully now the Prius won't be as slow as we remember it was, but Toyota won't speculate on exact efficiency figures just yet - I will keep you posted. Instead, they've announced a 0-100kmh acceleration figure: 9.8 seconds, which puts it only one tenth of a second slower than the Corolla.

What Toyota really have been bragging about is the drag coefficient of the new Prius - the lowest in the production car world. At 0.25, it surprised even me, but I suppose it a car looks like a piece of soap it had better be aerodynamic, huh? To put it in perspective, the Ferrari 599 has a drag coeffiecient of 0.33 - and it too is considered rather slippery.

There's not much to say for the prius in terms of design - they've kept the basic shape, which I've never liked, they've given it a face similar to the Corolla, which I've never liked, and they've kept the retarded split rear window thing, which you guessed it, I've never liked. Toyota have been saying that for this new model, they rejected the futuristic ideas of the current model and went with a more conventional, user-friendly design - but this new interior doesn't look very useer-friendly at all, so I hope they're right.

In the end, I still believe that the Prius is an irrelevant car - why did the current model have to cost $40,000 and still only be equipped with two airbags? - and it remains to be seen whether the new model will adress this. But first impressions have me betting that it won't.

DETROIT MOTOR SHOW 2009: The Next-Gen Toyota Prius for Next-Gen Greenies