Its official now. The next generation Prius wont be out till 2016. Read the news item below. Toyota pushes back U.S. Prius production by years | Reuters
The 2nd Gen Prius ran for about 6 years, so this shouldn't be too much of a surprise. And for adric22: It takes a good 3-4 years to get a car into production, maybe more with a car as complex as the Prius.
This tells me nothing. "as much as 6 years" kinda states the obvious (the Prius will be remodelled no less than 6 years from now)... well duh. Toyota models tend to run about 5 years on average. The Prius, however, has been running on 6 (1998-2003, 2004-2009)... I just treated the Dec 1997 production as the equivalent 1998 model year as we would label it in NA. It takes 18-24 months to get a car from design to flesh but planning takes longer. I wouldn't be surprised if the next Prius project started next year.
The real news in the article is not when a 4th gen Prius will be released, but that Prius production will not occur in the U.S. UNTIL the 4th generation, which won't likely happen before 2016. Obviously by the tone of the article there was some hope of production occurring in the U.S. earlier (and possibly producing some Gen III Prii).
That is indeed bad, but not unexpected news. When they announced the corolla production we knew US manufacture of the prius was a long way off. IMHO that's a mistake. There is nothing in the motor that does not look mature, unless I'm missing something. It is very straightforward. The battery on the other hand looks like it is due for a major change. Are they looking at Tesla's design? Or maybe hyundai and lg's lithium polymer. It is likely by 2016 many of the sales will be on plug in.
