Gadgetory

hey everybody this is Sean with the verge and I'm standing here at the New York Auto Show in front of the Toyota Prius Prime now Toyota released a brand new Prius last year but there are three big differences between this one and that one the first is that it's a plug-in hybrid so instead of just using deceleration regenerative braking to recharge the battery you can plug this one into a wall the eight point eight kilowatt hour battery inside can get you 22 miles just on the battery and that's not too great compared to a plug-in hybrid like the Chevy Volt which can get you about 50 but it's a step in the right direction for Toyota you can also go up to 84 miles an hour when you're just running on electrical power which is a little bit higher than you can on most plug-in hybrids like this now the second big difference is the appearance Toyota's really toned this version of the Prius down and it doesn't look quite as aggressive as the one that we saw last year which is nice it looks really good now the last big difference is the interior Toyota's really sprucing to prime up with the option of an 11.6 inch touchscreen tablet a move that Tesla and Volvo have been really doing for a couple years now so it's nice to see the interior get as much of a futuristic upgrade as the overall technology of the car now there's an 11 point 3 gallon gas tank inside to go along with the battery and those two combined can get you a range of about 600 miles which is pretty great for a plug-in hybrid and all this stuff is really important for Toyota going forward they definitely offer the best-selling hybrid that we've had for years now but there's a lot more competition not just from those electric car companies like Tesla but also from other companies that are starting to release full lines of hybrids plug-in hybrids and electric cars Hyundai recently announced the ionic which is not just one car but all three of those so Toyota's got a little bit more ground to make up as we go forward in this category how well the prime is going to sell we won't know until later this year when it finally goes on sale but for more news from here at the New York Auto Show make sure you go to the Virg calm and head to youtube.com slash The Verge and click Subscribe