Toyota/Isuzu: Could we see a diesel Prius?
Posted By RichC on December 12, 2006
According to Edmunds Insideline, the recent joint venture between Toyota and Isuzu could produce a diesel hybrid. Toyota, who recently announced that they would buy a 5.9 percent stake in
Isuzu, believes that creating a diesel alternative to their gasoline hybrid has merit. Steven Curtis, the media and investor relations national manager for Toyota, sees Isuzu’s diesel engine technology and Toyota’s environmental technologies as a way to bring the diesel engine and “Synergy hybrid drive train together. He believes “that the demand for diesel engines will increase globally,” something that is already apparent in Europe. Toyota’s North American President, Jim Press, stated that “eventually we (Toyota) will have hybrids on diesel, biodiesel, ethanol — the whole gamut.” For those thinking Deja vu, Toyota’s counterparts in the US, Detroit’s Big Three, worked on exactly this concept back in the 1990’s when a program called Partnership for the Next Generation of Vehicles produced diesel-electric hybrids looking to produces an 80mpg family sedan. Edmunds states that “A Prius with a diesel engine would closely resemble those concept vehicles, both in appearance and fuel economy.”
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