Toyota Prius 7 Seats

When traffic is in Japan these days, we see mainly 1) the Prius and 2) minivans. The choice of the first variation of the Prius sedan outside must be a high-evident: it will be a 7 seater minivan. It’s not exactly a surprise, given that the Japanese press was buzzing for 6 months as illustrated in this montage was Fenek magazine cover at the end of last year. But it’s the end of speculation: the Nihon Keizai Shimbun has to spill the beans by announcing the release of the Prius minivan, whose final name yet to be determined next year.

The other interesting part of this information is the fact that the Nikkei said that the car will be equipped with lithium ion batteries. So far, Toyota has remained conservative for its hybrids, preferring the characteristics of known and controlled with lithium ion batteries NiMh, deemed more efficient but still too uncertain in terms of cost and safety for automotive application. That did not stop the manufacturer to launch a relatively large scale fleet test of the Prius equipped with rechargeable Lithium Ion battery on the sector, but it was an experiment so far. We must believe that Toyota considers the matter now playable for production. The batteries will be manufactured in Japan canopy of the plant joint venture of Toyota and Panasonic, Panasonic EV Energy.