Earlier this year, Toyota showcased a racing-inspired Prius during the centennial anniversary of Le Mans. While that was just a concept, it was proof that the Japanese carmaker can go crazy with its next-generation hybrid if it wanted to.
Suffice to say, that’s exactly what Toyota plans to do now. It has confirmed that it will be entering the new Prius—the one that just won an important award—in the Idemitsu Super Endurance Southeast Asia Trophy 2023, a 10-hour endurance race in Thailand. It’ll hit the track alongside a GR86 and a GR Corolla.
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Unfortunately, Toyota has only given us sneak peeks of the race cars that aren’t called the Prius. Above you see the GR Corolla H2 concept, which is a hydrogen-powered version of the hot hatch, and below you have the GR86 CNF concept, a version of the sports coupe running on carbon-neutral fuel. We’ll probably have to wait until this weekend before we see the Prius in its race-ready form.
As an added fun fact, Toyota has also confirmed that part of the fuel used for the hydrogen-powered Corolla will include biogas generated from poultry farm chicken manure and food waste from Toyota Daihatsu Engineering and Manufacturing (TDEM).
The endurance race is happening on December 22 and 23 at the Chang International Circuit. The Prius entering the competition was developed based on a production vehicle, so this also marks the first time Toyota will be competing with a production Prius HEV. How do you think the hybrid and its teammates will perform?
