Toyota's 1/X Concept Baby Prius

With work well underway on the facelifted new Prius, Toyota will be exploring new avenues of green machines at this month's upcoming Tokyo Motor Show. Among them will be this: the 'environmentally-considerate' 1/X Concept.

Pronounced 1/Xth and meant to indicate its lightweight attributes through its name, the 1/X highlights the car's somewhat apparent weight-saving design enhancements by expressing its name as a fraction of the weight of its potential class-mates.

Toyota compare their latest hybrid concept with that of the million unit-selling Prius and while a facelifted new model of the best-selling hybrid in history won't get a 1/X facial transplant, the next-generation Prius and a new model slotting beneath the present-day hybrid could - with its lightweight technologies likely to feature in some shape or form on future models.

A baby Prius is rumoured for a 2010 entry in part of Toyota's strategy to meet annual sales targets of 1,000,000 hybrid units worldwide.

Press Release

TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION (TMC) announced today that it plans to exhibit eight concept and 13 other vehicles at the 40th Tokyo Motor Show* under the theme: "Harmonious Drive—a New Tomorrow for People and the Planet".

In keeping with its tradition of highlighting new, automotive possibilities at the Tokyo Motor Show in the form of a wide variety of concept vehicles and groundbreaking technologies, TMC's exhibit, this time as well, is meant to provide new proposals for the automobile.  Planned highlights include a vehicle that completely redefines what it means to be environmentally considerate and one that rewrites the rules of auto design with a proposal for ultra-efficient vehicle packaging.

Through the exhibit, TMC aims to showcase its pursuit of the essential emotional appeal of cars—being fun to drive and a pleasure to use—and to indicate its approach toward making sustainable mobility a reality so that people can coexist in harmony with the environment.

1/X

The 1/X (pronounced "one-Xth") is a concept vehicle that redefines from its very roots the idea of what it means to be environmentally considerate.  Among its attributes, the vehicle—with a design that aims to harmoniously coexist with people and society—weighs only “1/Xth” that of other vehicles in its class.

• Maintains an interior space on par with that of the Prius, with an aimed-for fuel efficiency that is double and a weight reduced to 420 kilograms (about one third the weight of the Prius).
• Combines fossil fuel consumption-reducing FFV* technology and a plug-in hybrid powertrain with a displacement of only 500cc that allows charging from an external power source and a longer electric-motor cruising distance; thus, in addition to being adapted for energy diversity, emits less CO2 and contributes to the prevention of air pollution.
• Locates the power unit beneath the rear seat (for a midship, rear-wheel-drive system) to contribute to an innovative and highly efficient package.
• Adopts light but highly rigid carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) throughout the body frame to ensure superior collision safety, while allowing narrower pillars for a better field of vision.