Breathless Prius fans, hark! From high upon Mount Hybrid has come word that the legendary and mythical plug-in version of the Prius hybrid will finally arrive on U.S. streets late this year. Now that we’ve built you up, allow us to tear you down: just 150 will be coming to America from a miserly 500-car global allotment, and all will be placed in the hands of “lease-fleet” customers such as utility companies, universities, and city governments. None will be made available to individual consumers—Larry David and Leo DiCaprio are reportedly heartbroken.
Based on the third-gen 2010 Prius, the plug-in version will use Toyota’s first lithium-ion batteries in place of the workaday model’s nickel-metal hydride units. Nickel batteries, Toyota says, are optimal for use in regular hybrids because of their ability to operate in the narrow band of charge required. Plug-in applications, however, charge harder and deplete farther, so lithium-ions are more appropriate.
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