Hybrids – and particularly Toyota’s complicated Hybrid Synergy Drive – feature two distinct sets of drivetrain components that are each capable of powering the vehicle under certain circumstances. As such, they are more expensive to produce than typical internal combustion engine-powered vehicles. Add in an expensive battery pack, and the expected cost for a hybridized Scion shoots past the self-imposed $20,000 ceiling that Toyota has set on its entry-level marque.

So, if not hybrids (at least not in the near-term future), what innovative technology is Toyota considering for Scion? For starters, all-wheel drive, likely cribbed from Subaru, of which Toyota owns a 16.5-percent stake. Apparently, Toyota believes it can manage an all-wheel-drive Scion that doesn’t break the $20,000 barrier more easily than it can one with a hybrid powertrain. Where that falls into the Japanese automaker’s stated goal to produce ever more fuel efficient vehicles, we don’t yet know.

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That’s right, the diminutive Toyota with the silly name is going to greet us as a youth-branded Scion. In multiple flavors, too. First will come a five-door hatchback, followed next by a four-door sedan. The latter is almost a little puzzling – who on earth wants a four-door sedan version – but then we recall all the other cars PR types tell us the American market forces into four-door guise and we’re not surprised one bit. The Scion iQ will also come as a three-door hatch. Expect the five-door to show up first, towards the end of 2011.

The engine options are pretty interesting. If you so desire, a 1.3-liter four-banger will produce 93 horsepower. However, most folks will probably opt for the hybrid version. First of all, the gas and electric propulsion is so cheap that Toyota will be able to sell it for $15,000 or less. Second, expect a 1.5-liter four and some sort of electric motor to produce between 100 and 120 hp and return 60 mile per gallon. Not bad at all. Again, Inside Line ends their scoop explaining that if the iQ doesn’t get youngsters buying Scions, nothing will. Er, make that nothing will have a chance to, as Toyota is likely to fold the brand.

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Toyota is ready to take its hybrid technology a step further in Frankfurt. Taking centre stage will be the Auris HSD Full Hybrid Concept. A milestone in Toyota’s long-term hybrid strategy, it represents the first step in introducing Hybrid Synergy Drive from the Prius into a mainstream model – and eventually across the entire range.

Alongside the Auris will be the latest Prius Plug-in Hybrid Concept. Allowing pure electric operation with a petrol engine only needed to top up the batteries, it offers significant advantages over the current car. And they willl be hitting UK roads as early as next year, when over 150 units will be leased to selected fleet customers.

Two customised show cars – the IQ for Sports (essentially a rebadged Scion IQ Concept first seen at the 2009 New York Motor Show) and the IQ Collection, featuring a panoramic glass roof and cow-print interior trim, will also be unveiled at the show.

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AllAboutPrius thinks the new hybrid will be getting some companions, but not necessarily in the Toyota showroom. For sure, Lexus is plotting a new stand-alone hybrid–and it could be that the Lexus HS 250h coming to January’s Detroit show will actually be a four-door derived from the new Prius. There’s also a new coupe on the front burner, to take on Honda’s CR-Z hybrid–and wouldn’t it be perfect it if was the replacement for the aging Scion tC?

There’s more meat on the 2010 Prius’ bones, too, according to AllAboutPrius.com. The new car has a more upscale, conservative interior than the second-generation car–which could make it easier to transform into a Lexus. And the 2010 Prius is expected to grow a bit, too, so that rear-seat legroom is improved.

The final word on the new Prius comes as Toyota opens the 2009 Detroit Auto Show–or maybe before that, if the embargo dam breaks as has become the custom. We’ll be here to fill you in as soon as more Prius pics and information surface. In the meantime, check out ABP’s writeup on the Prius and see more pics over at our 2010 Toyota Prius page.

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“The all-new Corolla really found its stride this month,” said TMS President Jim Lentz. “Launched amid soaring fuel prices and economic uncertainty, Corolla strikes a sweet spot for buyers seeking refinement in addition to fuel efficiency and affordability.”

The Toyota Division posted May sales of 230,811, a decrease of 6.3 percent from last May. The Lexus Division reported May sales of 26,593 units, a decrease of 19.6 percent from the year-ago month.

Toyota Division
Toyota Division passenger cars recorded May sales of 152,652 units, down 0.9 percent over the same period last year. Passenger-car sales were led by Corolla, which posted all-time best-ever sales of 52,826 units, an increase of 12.4 percent over May 2007. Camry and Camry Hybrid posted combined sales of 51,291 in May. Camry Hybrid reported May sales of 5,999 units. With limited availability, the Prius hybrid gas-electric mid-size sedan posted May sales of 15,011 units. Yaris reported all-time best-ever sales of 14,397 units, up 26.6 percent over the year-ago month.

Toyota Division light trucks recorded May sales of 78,159 units, down 15.3 percent from May 2007. Light truck sales were led by the Tacoma mid-size pickup, reporting May sales of 17,341 units, up 4.2 percent over May 2007. The Tundra full-size pickup posted May sales of 12,144 units. Highlander and Highlander Hybrid posted combined sales of 10,841 units in May. The Highlander Hybrid gas-electric mid-size SUV reported May sales of 2,644 units. Sequoia posted sales of 3,575 units for the month, up 75 percent over the same period last year.

Scion posted May sales of 14,858 units, up 28.4 percent over the year ago month. The xB urban utility vehicle led the way with May sales of 5,351 units, an increase of 40.9 percent over last May. The tC sports coupe, entering its fifth model year, posted May sales of 5,166 units. The xD reported all-time best-ever sales of 4,337 units.

Lexus Division
Lexus passenger cars reported May sales of 16,290 units, a decrease of 21.3 percent from May 2007. Passenger-car sales were led by the ES entry luxury sedan with May sales of 6,831 units. The IS entry luxury sport sedan reported combined sales of 5,420 units. The LS flagship luxury sedan reported combined sales of 2,115 units. Sales of the GS luxury sport sedan reported combined May sales of 1,708 units.

Lexus Division light trucks reported May sales totaling 10,303 units, down 16.7 percent from the year-ago month. Lexus sales were led by the RX luxury utility vehicle, which posted combined May sales of 8,082 units. The RX 400h hybrid luxury utility vehicle reported May sales of 2,155 units, up 19 percent over the year-ago month. The all-new LX 570 enjoyed sales of 827 units, an increase of 201.7 percent versus the same period last year

TMS Hybrids
TMS calendar-year-to-date hybrid sales totaled 127,353 units. TMS posted May sales of 26,019 hybrid vehicles. Toyota Division posted sales of 23,654 hybrids for the month. Lexus Division posted May sales of 2,365 hybrids, an 18 percent increase over the same period last year.

There were 27 selling days this month, as compared to 26 selling days last May.

Scion xA
Current Month
- 2008: 4
- 2007: 1,297
- Chg: -99.7%
Calendar YTD
- 2008: 35
- 2007: 8,096
- Chg: -99.6%

Scion xB
Current Month
- 2008: 5,351
- 2007: 3,658
- Chg: 40.9%
Calendar YTD
- 2008: 21,241
- 2007: 13,331
- Chg: 56.9%

Scion tC
Current Month
- 2008: 5,166
- 2007: 6,615
- Chg: -24.8%
Calendar YTD
- 2008: 19,575
- 2007: 27,041
- Chg: -28.7%

Scion xD
Current Month
- 2008: 4,337
- 2007: 0
- Chg: -
Calendar YTD
- 2008: 13,153
- 2007: 0
- Chg: -

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By this measure of greenness, Aston Martins and Ferraris probably run a close second, though it’s a safe bet that more of those have been wrecked. As counterpoint to these enduring automobiles, the National Automobile Dealers Association reports that 12 million cars and trucks were scrapped in the United States in 2006. “Scrapped” in this context covers a range of possibilities, from systematically recycled to submerged in country ponds.

In a thoughtful debate on environmental impact, few will hold fast to the notion that a Silver Shadow is the greenest car. But the point is taken. With attention focused on sexy propulsion sources, considerations such as manufacturing, duty cycle and disposal get lost in the roar. Does anyone really know what the most ecologically friendly car is?

Science can only guide us, and often the science gets buried under hype from all corners with something to sell.

“There’s been a sincere effort to give consumers a rationale for comparing the eco-performance of vehicles,” says Shruti Vaidyanathan, principal vehicle analyst at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). “There’s also a lot of hard sell that isn’t based on good policy or science, and there are gray areas in measuring eco-performance. The ends of the life cycle are among the biggest.”

Gasoline-electric hybrids–particularly the Toyota Prius–have quickly become poster children for various environmental advocates. But there’s plenty of evidence that hybrids aren’t the greenest vehicles to build. One European think tank recently suggested that hybrids and their marketing schemes are actually impediments to genuinely sustainable green automotive technologies.

For 11 years, ACEEE has published its Green Book, which ranks vehicles according to a green score, tabulated using “a singular measure that incorporates fuel economy, health-related pollution impacts, global-warming emissions” and other environmental factors. The greenest vehicle for 2008? It isn’t the Prius but a Honda Civic, and it’s not the Civic Hybrid, either. For the fifth consecutive year, ACEEE’s greenest car is the Civic GX, powered by compressed natural gas (CNG).

That’s partly because CNG is one of the simplest of all hydrocarbons, leaving less CO2 for each unit of heat released during combustion. So the Civic GX can burn considerably more fuel (by energy content) than a Prius and still generate less of the greenhouse gas. Again, however, operating emissions are only part of the equation. As an example, consider hydrogen.

In the green-fuel scheme, there’s no obvious drawback to hydrogen, and Honda has begun leasing its FCX Clarity hydrogen-fuel-cell sedan to carefully selected customers in California. Yet the zero-emissions FCX Clarity will absolutely alter nature’s ecological balance. Exactly how much isn’t clear, because cradle-to-grave analysis remains the fuzziest component of green-car evaluation. Today’s fuel cells require platinum, which means mining a rare metal and then finding some means of recycling it.

Hype about benefits, as usual, is abundant. No one blows a trumpet for the downsides of their proposed alternative automobiles.

In the spring of 2007, it was widely reported that nickel for the nickel-metal-hydride batteries in the Prius is mined and smelted near Sudbury, Ontario. Sudbury happens to be known as one of industry’s great environmental disasters. For decades, sulfur dioxide released in the smelting process killed all but the most acid-tolerant vegetation in the surrounding countryside, to the point where the barren, moonlike landscape was used as a training site for Apollo-program astronauts. Prius bashers seized the news as an indication of the car’s true color.

Blaming the Prius for Sudbury’s eco-disaster is like blaming the Exxon Valdez incident on a brewery. Damage in the region resulted from a century of nickel mining and smelting, and it had largely been reversed before the first Prius was built. Picking on the Prius also assumes that other automobiles don’t contain nickel, and they all do. If Sudbury has relevance to the greenness of the Prius, it rests largely on highlighting cradle-to-grave impact.

ACEEE weighs life-cycle impact in its green score, but the group’s methodology pointedly notes: “Standardized, model-specific data on the environmental damage of vehicle manufacturing are not available.” Nor are there “sufficient data to estimate vehicle-disposal and scrappage impacts.” Ultimately, the green score weighs manufacturing and recycling based on mass. The heavier the car, the bigger the impact.

Still, it seems fairly obvious that hybrid and other green-tech automotive production is more complicated, energy-intensive and potentially disruptive to the environment. Toyota allows that its hybrid production requires more energy than conventional production, particularly in materials processing, but counters that extra energy used in the cradle is dwarfed by energy saved during the hybrid’s operational life.

The standard life-cycle-impact assessment applies a 15/80/5 formula: 15 percent manufacture, 80 percent operation, 5 percent disposal. The roots of 15/80/5 appear to be academic intuition or a research hypothesis established in the 1980s as a starting point. In the mid-1990s, Volvo undertook what it expected to be a definitive analysis of energy used to build its cars, from the extraction of raw material through various levels of suppliers to final assembly. When the scope and complexity of making any reliable assessment became clear, the company gave up. The 15/80/5 model hasn’t evolved much since, though recent studies have challenged its validity.

In 2005, CNW Research (www.cnwmr. com) published the first of its controversial “Dust to Dust” Automotive Energy Reports, which purport to measure “the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage.” This small Oregon-based company is typically retained by carmakers for market research, as are more familiar firms such as J.D. Power, though CNW says that “Dust to Dust” is not a funded study. The lengthy report seems to be based on data available in libraries or on the Internet, as well as factory and facility tours. It concludes that the 15/80/5 formula is way out of whack. In some instances, most energy consumption occurs before the vehicle reaches a consumer’s driveway.

“Dust to Dust” ultimately converts a vehicle’s energy use into “cost per lifetime mile.” By CNW’s assessment, the greenest vehicle available in 2007 was Toyota’s Scion xB, followed by the Jeep Wrangler. The Prius ranked 74th, below Land Rover’s Range Rover and the Aston Martin DB9.

CNW’s methodology and conclusions have been challenged by many, most prominently by environmental groups. Again, though, there’s a point to be taken: There’s more to green than mpg.

Subaru’s assembly line in Indiana was the first automobile factory certified as a zero-landfill plant, and it’s widely accepted as one of the cleanest factories in the world. So, how much does it matter that the conventional Tribeca SUV built there suffers in the ACEEE’s green score because its engine is certified at a slightly higher emissions level than some others? Ford’s F-150 pickup, often cast as a dinosaur of old tech, is built at Ford’s new Rouge plant, with its sedum-covered roof to filter rain runoff and convert CO2 through photosynthesis and solar panels that heat the water and provide excess energy for other applications. Estimates rank the F-150′s supply, assembly and customer-transportation costs among the lowest in the auto industry and those of the Prius among the highest.

If 15/80/5 was ever accurate, the ratio is sure to change as vehicle operation generally gets cleaner, and the ends will gain weight. We’ve made leaps in propulsion technology, but we’ve moved less in other areas.

When do we get a properly designed, expansive and adequately funded cradle-to-grave study of the automobile’s environmental impact, untainted by the biases of either automakers or environmentalists? If we’re sincere in the desire to make our beloved car as ecologically friendly as it can be, we need one. And, as always, we need perspective and common sense.

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The six-year-old brand, launched at the New York International Auto Show in 2002, showed off its Hako coupe concept — a boxy vehicle that’s reminiscent of classic American coupes, said Jack Hollis, vice president for Scion.

Scion sold 130,000 vehicles in 2007 and the company expects to maintain the volume.

Scion has the youngest median age of buyers — 30 — in the industry and 72 percent of Scion buyers are new to Toyota. The Scion tC has a median age of 24. Scion targets “young trend leaders.”

Scion plans to keep some models — like the xA — for just a single-model cycle, while others like the xB will move into second or even third generations.

“We need to think about how we will bring more young and new customers into the Toyota family,” Hollis said. “Looking at fresh new concepts is something that Scion will be doing more often as we consider the possibility of adding a fourth, fifth or sixth vehicle to our lineup to expand the flow of youth into Toyota and Lexus.”

Hollis said Scion is considering a hybrid.

“Will we have a truck in our lineup? Does it make sense to have a hybrid powertrain? Is a subcompact roadster the answer? Or will an SUV ever be viable for us” Hollis mused. “We don’t know the answers but we’re very open-minded.”

The Scion Hako Coupe concept — named for the Japanese word for box — features a seating area called “a youth lounge” and has seats made of urethane material for easy cleaning “as we know young people live in their vehicles,” Hollis said.

Separately, Toyota spokesman Irv Miller said the company planned to revise downward its estimate of 2008 industry sales. Toyota currently is reviewing its forecast of the market and will likely announce its lower estimate of total U.S. sales during its March sales call.

But Miller said Toyota would be on the optimistic end of things, far more optimistic than J.D. Power and Associates revised forecast of 14.95 million vehicles for 2008, which would amount to more than a 1 million unit decline over 2006.

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