Filed under: Diesel, Emerging Technologies, Hybrid, MPG, Mercedes Benz, SMART, Europe/EU, Africa, UK, Videos Smart will not make another generation of the Roadster, but a Smart SUV might be in the cards. According to Smart's CEO, Annette Winkler, "The...

Filed under: Hybrid, Government/Legal, Diesel The agency thinks the new approach will result in more realistic ratings, especially for hybrids. The Environmental Protection Agency is getting tired of discovering automakers overstating their vehicl...

Filed under: Hybrid, Toyota

Scroll down the leaderboards of Nürburgring lap times and you'll see mostly racing cars, supercars and sports cars. Delve deep enough and you'll eventually get to hatchbacks and sedans, albeit the most performance-focused of their kind. But a hybrid? Sure, the Porsche 918 Spyder posted the top time for a street-legal series production car, and it's technically a hybrid, but we're talking about another kind of hybrid here. We're talking about a Toyota Prius.

That's right: the Prius just set a lap record around the Nordschleife. But it wasn't for the lap time. In fact, miles per hour barely factored in (except for staying above the minimum 37-mph average speed mandated on the vaunted racing circuit). No, this was about miles per gallon.

Toyota took one of its Prius Plug-In hybrids to the Nürburgring, topped up the battery, put on a set of low-rolling-resistance tires and put automotive journalist Joe Clifford behind the wheel with a mandate to use as little fuel as possible. After one second shy of 21 minutes, the Prius completed its lap having used just five tablespoons of fuel.

In fact, the gasoline engine kicked in just once over the course of the 13-mile lap on a long uphill stretch, helping the Prius achieve an indicated 698 miles per gallon. That's mighty impressive indeed, even if it would have been lapped three times over by the 918 by that point. Watch the video and scope out the press release below for the full skinny.

Continue reading Toyota Prius sets a different kind of Nürburgring lap record [w/video]

Toyota Prius sets a different kind of Nürburgring lap record [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 15 Jul 2014 19:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Hybrid, Hatchback, Audi, First Drives, Electric Over the years, we've had a chance to test a lot of Audi E-Tron vehicles, from very early all-electric prototypes (back then we only got to sit in the passenger seat) to the A6 L E-Tron PHEV...

Filed under: Coupe, Hybrid, Performance, Audi, Electric The question of whether Audi will morph the next-gen R8 (pictured above, in testing) into a plug-in-hybrid challenger for the BMW i8 may have been answered. CarAdvice, in Australia, is claiming t...