New Toyota Prius is WhatGreenCar car of the year
Tue 30 June 2009
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WhatGreenCar.com has named the new generation Toyota Prius as its 'car of the year'. The new Prius is due to be launched in the UK on 1st August. Highly commended in the same competition were the new Honda Insight hybrid, the Ford Fiesta ECOnetic and the BMW 318d saloon.
The new Toyota Prius was chosen from a short-list of 10 green car finalists which were test-driven at Imperial College, London, by six green transport and environmental experts, including a representative of the LowCVP. The judging was independent and showcased the most innovative green cars available to drive in the UK during 2009.
The 10 cars up for contention for the 2009 Award included: the Citroen C1 ev'ie electric, Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric, Toyota iQ, Ford Fiesta ECOnetic, third-generation Toyota Prius hybrid, Volvo S40/V50 DRIVe start-stop, new Honda Insight hybrid, VW Passat BlueMotion 2, BMW 318d saloon, and the Citroen C3 Picasso compact-MPV.
Dr Ben Lane, Managing Editor of WhatGreenCar said: "While this year's judges were rightly impressed by the range of green car technologies employed by the 10 car short-list, they were unanimous in their acclaim for the new Prius. In addition to the new model's best-in-class cradle-to-crave environmental credentials, the panel particularly commented on the way the car seamlessly integrates green features as part of its design. If Apple made a car, it would probably be the third generation Prius."
With a lighter and more and compact power-train, the latest Prius has a best-in-class WhatGreenCar environmental rating of 33, official combined fuel economy of 72.4 mpg and CO2 emissions of only 89 g/km – a 14% improvement over the highly successful current model, itself the winner of many awards since its UK launch in 2004.
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