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It hasn’t happened for most Totoya Prius drivers, but one day – perhaps 150,000 or so miles down the road – it will. An indicator light will appear on the dash to signal that the battery pack is past its prime and needs to be replaced.

Some critics of hybrids and electric vehicles have pointed to this moment as proof that these vehicles actually have more environmental impact than conventional autos, as battery packs potentially clutter up landfills with toxic materials. Only, that’s not what’s happening at Toyota.

When a Prius battery pack reaches end of life, Toyota provides a UPS shipping container so the battery can be sent to a recycling center. For U.S. cars, that center is in California. The batteries are shorted out to prevent accidents with any remaining charge, then all of the components are disassembled. The plastic case is shredded and recycled. The electrolyte is decanted and the rare earth elements recovered. The nickel plates are sent to a smelter where they are used in making steel. All the components of the pack are recycled or reused, leaving nothing to go to the landfill. The same recycler is already equipped to deal with the lithium batteries found on the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, and plug-in Prius.

Of course, there is the problem of cost. Toyota has lowered the price over the years, but a new Prius battery pack still rings up at $2,589. And while some Prius batteries are fine up to 300,000 miles, facing a potential bill that large can make Prius owners decide that seeing 150k miles on the odometer makes a good time to trade…That’s why some dealers have instituted a policy of replacing batteries on high mileage trade-ins before they’re put up for sale.

Having a fresh battery on board assures purchasers that they’ll drive for years without worrying about that little light, and helps assure dealers that a used Prius won’t spend too long on the sales lot.

Also a reason why a used Prius might be a tad more expensive than you thought it was going to be. Demand also has a lot to do with it, though. One of the few used cars I’ve ever tucked away in the back of my mind as potential for the next family commuter-mobile.

Yes – be certain the dealer puts in writing the fact that he replaced the battery.

We heard the rumors in Tokyo, but wouldn’t believe it until we saw it. And here it is. Toyota will be replacing its Axio racer with a Prius for next year’s SuperGT season.

The touring car Prius will reportedly run in the GT300 class against the recently released Subaru BRZ and Honda CR-Z, the latter of which – like the Prius – will use some kind of hybrid drivetrain in the championship. We don’t have any hard details on the powertrain just yet, but expect more to be revealed sometime in January.

Rock on, Prius.

Actually the new Prius Aqua is one of two cars we’re considering as replacement for my wife’s ancient Volvo 245 wagon – which still averages 24mpg btw. The other is the VW Golf diesel.

A fleet of high-performance cars, including eight Ferraris, has been involved in one of the most expensive accidents in history after an astonishing multi-car pile-up in Japan. Police said three Mercedes Benz cars and a Lamborghini Diablo were also involved in the massive crash at the weekend on the Chugoku Expressway, in the country’s south-west.

While the majority of the 14 vehicles – which also included a Japanese supercar Nissan GT-R Skyline and a Toyota Prius – were travelling along the Osaka Prefecture-bound bended lane at least one Mercedes CL600 was driving in the opposite direction.

Television footage showed the cars – either wrecked or destroyed – spread across the highway, in a trail of crumpled metal and broken glass. Several of the vehicles were wedged up against the metal barriers. Miraculously, none of drivers – the majority of whom are reported to be foreign car enthusiasts – were seriously hurt in the wreckage but the bill is still bound to be painful nonetheless.

Such was the severity of the damage, several of the luxury cars have been written off, leaving their owners with the nightmare scenario of seeing their prized possessions turned into expensive scrap metal.

The total damage bill is expected to hit several million pounds. A new Ferrari 355 retails for several hundred thousand pounds. The other Ferrari models understood to have been involved in the pile-up include a F512, F355, F430 and a F360…

It is thought the crash occurred when the lead driver hit a central barrier after losing control of their Ferrari while trying to overtake in wet conditions. They are then reported to have hit the central reservation before rebounding into the path of the oncoming traffic.

They then caused a chain reaction of accidents over several hundred yards as other drivers went around the bend and unable to avoid the accident.

The highway was closed for more than six hours while authorities removed the wrecked cars.

Insurance companies are going to love this one. Especially whoever is covering the poor bugger whose Prius was thumped by all the expensive alloy and horsepower.

The launch of vehicles like the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf has stirred up a debate over battery longevity. Critics say battery output will degrade and cite outrageous replacement costs as a possible downside to these breakthrough machines. Well, it turns out that skeptics posed similar concerns over a decade ago, when the Toyota Prius made its U.S. debut. Turns out, those worrywarts were too, well, worried.

Based on data gleaned from more than 36,000 Prius owners in its annual survey, Consumer Reports gives Toyota’s best-selling hybrid top scores in terms of reliability and ownership costs. As we noted in January, CR set out to answer questions posed by skeptics by taking a 2002 Prius with 206,000 miles on it and putting it through a battery (get it?) of tests.

After extensive testing, CR’s numbers show that the first-gen 2002 Prius returned an overall fuel economy of 40.4 miles per gallon, which is virtually identical to the 40.6 mpg that CR recorded when testing a new Prius back in 2001. Likewise, CR found that, with 206,000 miles on the clock, the old Prius’ acceleration numbers had only dropped by a few tenths of a second for both the 0-60 miles per hour dash and the quarter-mile run.

… The tested Prius’ nickel-metal hydride battery pack showed virtually no signs of degradation after ten years and 206,000 miles…There’s a good case to be made that the critics might not always bear listening to.

Whining and whimpering about new tech is always a feature of Luddites who will deny to their death that they are Luddites. Maybe there should be a new category for those who have finally caught up with engineering designs that are a century old – but, still fear moving forward?

As the second size extension of the Toyota Prius family tree, the 2012 Prius+ adds a healthy dose of roominess to the well-known fuel-sipping hybrid equation, and it’s making its world debut at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show. There’s seating for seven occupants inside, but the multi-purpose vehicle shares a clear design language with Toyota’s standard-bearing Prius. What’s more, it manages a low 0.29 drag coefficient thanks to its extended roofline and carefully designed front fascia.

Equally as notable is the battery. This is the first lithium-ion battery pack to be incorporated within a non-plug-in Toyota full hybrid. Toyota has found enough room underneath the center console between the driver and the front passenger to fit the battery, which helps maximize interior space for occupants and their cargo.

As you would expect from a Prius, there are three drive modes: A zero-emission EV mode that relies on electric motor power alone, an ECO mode that maximizes efficiency and fuel economy and finally a somewhat ambitiously named POWER mode that is said to boost overall performance.

Toyota is saying that the Prius+ will be on sale in Europe in the first half of 2012, but it’s coming to the U.S. around the same time in the form of the Prius V, which we previously saw at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show.

The 2nd model of an extended platform Prius from Toyota. We’re getting past DINKs who are early adopters. Families – with family activities – are being pressed by knowledge, acceptance and economics to move to intelligent transportation choices.

I hate to sound overly optimistic; but – like personal savings – as often as American gullibility trends economic and political habits back into same-old habits, it appears that a bit more knowledge seems to promote at least a small measure of intelligent self-interest that sticks.

We’ve been hearing the rumors for over a year, and it’s now looking increasingly likely that Toyota is getting ready to launch a new hybrid minivan that will wear the Prius nameplate. If true, this would be the first completely new vehicle added to the Prius stable, where it would join the well-known hatchback sometime in 2011.

According to Reuters (which is citing the Japanese Nikkei), this new Prius hybrid minivan may very well be the first such vehicle from Toyota equipped with an in-house developed lithium ion battery pack. The three-row vehicle, which we can only presume would also have sliding doors, would potentially seat up to seven people, expanding Toyota’s hybrid technology further into the family-use market.

No other details are available other than the notion that Toyota would like to keep the price close to that of standard minivans currently on the market.

This is the concept car Toyota just showed in Geneva. No doubt a production version would have a higher roofline and a tad more ground clearance. Perhaps, all-wheel-drive and a longer cabin. All mods which would reduce mileage a bit.

But, not a bad idea.

Technicians who tested a Toyota Prius after its owner claimed its gas pedal stuck were unable to recreate the same condition, according to a draft congressional memo obtained…by CNN.

In addition, owner Jim Sikes’ claim that the car kept going even though he slammed on the brake while his gas pedal was stuck to the floor does “not appear to be feasibly possible,” said the draft, obtained from sources familiar with the investigation.

The memo, written for members of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, summarizes the observations of a representative present at the testing of the Prius, as well as another car “allegedly involved in sudden unintended acceleration events.”

Contacted by CNN, Sikes declined to comment but said he stands by his story. He said his attorney will be making a statement on his behalf…

Eventually, a California Highway Patrol officer caught up to Sikes and used the patrol car’s public address system to instruct Sikes to apply the brakes and the emergency brake at the same time. That tactic worked, and he was able to stop the car…

Sikes said he’d been afraid to shift into neutral at 90mph because he was afraid the car would flip over!

Technicians from Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration took Sikes’ Prius on a test drive and attempted to duplicate the same experience, the memo said, but were unsuccessful. A congressional staffer and another Toyota technician tested another Prius.

“Every time the technician placed the gas pedal to the floor and the brake pedal to the floor, the engine shut off and the car immediately started to slow down,” the memo said. “NHTSA and Toyota field representatives reported the same results with the 2008 Prius owned by Mr. Sikes.”

“These findings certainly raise new questions surrounding the veracity of the sequence of events that has been reported by Mr. Sikes,” said Kurt Bardella, spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, and ranking member on the committee.

I can’t testify with any accuracy about Mr. Sikes’ truthfulness. BUT – he’s a bankrupt realtor $700,000 in debt including months of payments on his leased Prius. Which I imagine Toyota has threatened to repo.

The bankruptcy statement isn’t clear on how much he makes from his AdultSwingLife website.

During the summer, Toyota announced it would lease hundreds of plug-in Prius models by the end of 2009 as a “key first step” in evaluating a version for mass production.

Now Toyota is more specific. Executive vice president Takeshi Uchiyamada told reporters in Tokyo that the company plans to sell a retail plug-in Prius hybrid for the 2011 model year, Bloomberg reports, with the intent to sell “several tens of thousands” annually around the world.

The plug-in Prius will run for about 14 miles on pure electricity generated by a lithium-ion battery, according to the report. After that, the gas engine will kick in and run the car as a hybrid, with an expected overall fuel economy of 134 miles per gallon. Toyota is aiming to price the car “affordably;” currently plug-in conversion kits for the Prius are running at about $10,000.

Toyota runs a business. They’ll price the plug-in at what the market can bear – and that will reflect everything from employment figures, wages, availability and price of gasoline to which way the wind blows. The 134 mpg econo-figure is conservative if anything. It is the result of Japanese government testing – not Uncle Sugar’s advertising mill.

Probably the best indicator of the enormous profits made by the Oil Patch Boys is the number of self-described “independent” pundits and skeptics they actually own.

You know that Green is starting to happen when three variants on Green Cars get into a mixer with each other.

Shows you how strong a Prius is when – as far as I can see – it was the Prius in the photo that shoved theTesla underneath the VW Touareg.

All three drivers are presumed to have walked away from the crash including the Tesla Roadster pilot.

Yes, I count the Touareg as Green because other sources noted it as a diesel.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Throughout Toyota’s global operations, managers are scrambling to cut costs in the wake of record losses.

But at Toyota’s Tsutsumi plant, managers have the opposite problem: meeting demand for the third generation of the Prius, which has become an instant hit in Japan and is rolling into American showrooms now.

The Prius plant has brought back overtime — a rarity these days, given Japan’s weak economy — and recruited workers from Toyota factories across the country…

To be sure, no one at Toyota expects the profit earned on the Prius alone to revive the company’s fortunes, but the buzz of the car’s initial success is at least diverting attention from the auto giant’s stumbles.

In Japan, Toyota received 80,000 orders for the car before it went on sale, a fifth of the company’s sales goal of 400,000 worldwide for the year, about half of that in the United States.

The company sold 110,000 Priuses in Japan in May — and there is a waiting list of several months — helped by government incentives that encouraged sales of fuel-efficient cars.

You know. The sort of practice encouraging thrifty transport so hated and feared by the Party of No.

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