Prius lineup to include coupe, wagon

Toyota is reportedly working on coupe and sportswagon or SUV versions of the Prius to take on Honda's CR-Z and a likely upcoming version of its Skydeck concept.

UK magazine Autocar reports that while the coupe would inherit the hatch's chassis and its 100kW 1.8-litre petrol-electric powertrain, it would extract performance improvements from a slipperier body shape and a weight loss program. There is room for improvement there -- the hatch is good for 10.5 seconds to 100km/h and a top speed of around 175km/h.

Japan's Best Car magazine has raised the idea that Toyota might even take the design brief to one of the big-name Italian design houses such as Italdesign Giugiaro or Pininfarina.

Both publications and other Japanese media have also reported Toyota is also working on an MPV or sportswagon version of the Prius, in anticipation of an announcement by Honda that the Skydeck concept unveiled at the Tokyo motor show will go to market alongside the CR-Z and the Insight.

There are also suggestions the wagon might be bulkier than the sedan and come with more muscle in the powertrain. Pundits from US site Edmunds have raised the possibility of a shift away from current nickel-metal hydride battery technology to lithium-ion.

Toyota claims not to be satisified with the latter on price or reliability yet, but that's bound to change and Edmunds has hinted that Toyota partner Panasonic might be sitting on something big in that realm that they're not ready to talk about yet.

Whatever they're doing, Toyota must know that with hybrid product pouring forth from so many of its competitors, every day it's not draping the Prius name over other models is time and brand equity squandered.

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