Last night's banner headline over at the gadget blog Engadget read "2010 Prius revealed, sneakers still a major design influence." But no, it wasn't revealed and no, that's not the Prius. (Props to Engadget for being snarky, at the least.) This was a great case of how misinformation spreads like a gasoline-fueled fire in the ol blogosphere. Here's how it went down: Car and Driver put up a story with some not remarkably new details and a CGI of the next generation Prius just to illustrate. Of course, they didn't actually say it was a photoshop or "artist's rendering." TG Daily picked up the story from Car and Driver, along with the picture. Then Engadget – one of the largest gadget and tech blogs on the 'nets – ran with the story from TG Daily. Eventually a reader alerted Engadget that they were holding onto a not-so-hot photochop. The site added a disclaimer at the bottom of their post "Update: Our bad, looks like the image above is apparently just Car and Driver's illustration of what they think it COULD look like. Thanks, Dave." Dave? Dave's not here. Anyway, that's cool. But why is the headline still saying "revealed?" And for whatever it's worth, Vince Burlapp already posted the same CGI – as well as a back view – on Saturday.
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Hmmm… wheels too large up front, windshield likely too expensive to mass produce, A-pillar appears to be non-practical from a safety standpoint, and the rear window area looks particularly asymmetric.
In addition to the over-sized appearing front wheels that Steven points out, it also appears to be floating as they didn’t air-brush reasonable enough shadowing, or reasonable reflections.
Overall, the package looks like a cartoon and I’m really surprised that it deceived. I guess it comes down to wishful thinking over-taking good sense.
I sincerely hope it looks like that, though. It takes the trademark prius shape and really evolves it into a great looking car. Plus, I’m a huge fan of hatchbacks. (07 GTI and 05 MCS in the garage)
Sorry Quentin, but I am going to have to disagree with you on the “great looking car” part. It looks like someone stepped on the roof and squashed it down. Something just doesn’t look right about it.
Cartoon car, indeed. In addition to the flaws noted above, the driver wouldn’t be able to see the road within forty yards, and rear seat passengers would have to remove their heads to clear the drooping roofline. Some car designs are like wacky haute couture: utterly impractical for real-world use.
Looks like a Yaris with a receding hairline.
50merc Says:
Cartoon car, indeed. In addition to the flaws noted above, the driver wouldn’t be able to see the road within forty yards, and rear seat passengers would have to remove their heads to clear the drooping roofline. Some car designs are like wacky haute couture: utterly impractical for real-world use.
If people can drive a corvette and see out of the front of that, this would be no issue. The windscreen and hood profile seem similar to the Honda Fit, which has great visibility out of the front. I think we’ll see something that looks very similar to a long wheelbase iQ with some massaging to improve the Cd.
~~Quentin
That windshield will really strain the air conditioning unit (better add $5k PV panel to correct this).
Wow, that burlapp cars site seems to have a lot of false, er “anonymous” claims about the Prius.
Tell me why TTAC linked to it again? Oh yes, for the CGI pictures. And not a pretty girl in the bunch, tsk, tsk…