The all new, fourth generation Toyota Prius will be launched in India by this year end. The car which is the first of many models to be built on the Toyota New Global Architecture - a new grounds up modular platform - will unfortunately not come equipped with Toyota Safety Sense.
Toyota Safety Sense or TSS is a suite of safety features which relies on a camera and a millimetre radar system to enhance the active safety of the car. TSS includes adaptive cruise control, lane departure alert, automatic high beam activation and a pre-collison system. The New Prius is the first car globally to get this safety suite.
The reason for this omission in India is the government ruling against the use of radar in personal cars. This ruling has also prevented car makers like Volvo and Mercedes from introducing their latest driver-aid related safety tech in the country.
Getting back to the new Prius, it uses a 1.8-litre petrol engine which works along with an electric motor and a battery pack to deliver low CO2 emissions and a high claimed fuel economy of 40.8kmpl. According to Toyota, the new Prius is 25.2 per cent more efficient than the older Prius, 18.2 per cent of which comes from improvements in drivetrain. When launched in India, the new Prius is expected to cost more than the Camry Hybrid owing to the former being a CBU.
