Summary
- Toyota eliminates the Prime name for RAV4 and Prius PHEVs to maintain consistency globally.
- All Toyota PHEVs will now be referred to as Plug-in hybrids or PHEVs.
- Toyota standardizes vehicle naming with HEV for hybrids, BEV for EVs, and FCEV for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Toyota announced earlier this week that all of its RAV4 and Prius plug-in hybrid models will no longer wear the name Prime. They’ll be replaced by the names Toyota RAV4 and Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid instead. Why?
According to Toyota, the Prime name – which I must say sounded seriously cool – was unique to the North American market. As a matter of fact, their names weren’t consistent across all markets. In some areas of the world, these cars are labeled as PHEVs. In others, as plug-in hybrids. There were even markets where they were simply called plug-ins.
So, in an attempt to remain consistent on a global scale, Toyota narrowed the Prime models down to plug-in hybrid, or PHEV (for plug-in hybrid electric vehicle). Moving forward, this is what the Japanese giant will call all of its PHEVs, no matter where they are sold on the planet.
Toyota PHEV, HEV, BEC and FCEV. What Do They All Mean?
Toyota also took advantage of this situation to rename all of its vehicles, whether they be plug-in hybrids, regular hybrids, fully electric or powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.
I’m not sure if this is less confusing, but moving forward, all Toyotas powered by a hybrid engine will be called HEV, for hybrid electric vehicle. If you want my honest opinion on this one, I call B.S. A hybrid is not an electric vehicle. It’s a gasoline-powered car that consumes way less fuel than a non-hybrid one. And I’m not the only one who thinks this. There has been an FTC complaint about Toyota’s misleading advertisement.
Moving on, all fully electric vehicles (EVs) at Toyota will wear the BEV nomenclature, for Battery Electric Vehicle. Fuel cell hydrogen cars, trucks and SUVs will be called FCEV, for fuel-cell electric vehicle. All of these are fine, by the way. They make way more sense than HEV.
So, there you have it. This is why Toyota is getting rid of the Prime name. It’s unfortunate that Toyota didn’t keep that Transformer-inspired momentum going, though. Hybrids could have been called Autobrids, EVs DeceptEVs (because Toyota EVs aren’t all that great at the moment), and fuel-cells, MegaCells. I’m sure it would have been a hit with the kids.
