If you’ve ever sat front seat in a Prius, or really any moderately new Toyota, then you’ve experienced its rear-view camera that pops up whenever you throw your auto in reverse. But what if someone had more artistic aspirations for that camera? Turns out that’s probably a bad idea.

Last week, the European Parliament ruled that all electric and hybrid cars must add artificial engine noise so that pedestrians can hear them coming. While the mandate is mostly to protect visually impaired pedestrians, the noise will also benefit anyone on the street who's ever had a near-miss with a Prius.

You might ask why someone would want to turn a perfectly good Toyota Prius into a roller coaster that moves at a mere 15mph. I ask why not?

Unless China and Japan can sort out their shit and the exportation of rare earth elements can proceed into Japan, the future of electric cars could be thrown into jeopardy. Production of cars like the Prius could slow down dangerously.

Toyota is offering an optional $148 speaker system for your Prius when it's on battery mode that lets pedestrians—especially blind pedestrians—know that you're coming. Great idea, but it's strange that it's optional.

Click to viewWe've read about Steve Wozniak's car troubles and he even updated us on the lack of assistance from Toyota. What we hadn't seen until now is a video of him venting his frustrations. And wow! The man is truly frustrated.

Steve Wozniak has commented in Gizmodo about his problems with his beloved Toyota Prius, its faulty acceleration software, and his problems reporting this to both Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. He's frustrated, and completely right.

Uh oh. Steve Woz is having some "very scary" trouble with his 2010 Toyota Prius. At a recent event in San Francisco he went off topic and talked about how faulty software is to blame for his car's accelerator troubles:

What do you do when the "eco-friendly" car you're manufacturing is actually horrible for the environment to manufacture? Re-engineer nature, obviously!

Toyota is planting giant 18-feet Solar Flowers all across major cities in the United States. It's all a Prius marketing campaign, but as long as they give me free power and Wi-Fi, I'm game.

Trust us: If there's one time you can get away with a not-so-green lifestyle, it's when you're dead.

The thing that's always kept me from wanting a hybrid car is that they aren't all that fast. And the ones that are fast cost too much money. That might change with Toyota's MR2 Hybrid.

The 2010 Toyota Prius gets 50mpg while bringing dead trees back to life. But maybe more our speed, the car also features a really nifty "Tracer Display" unlike anything we've seen in dashboards before.

Toyota claims that their upcoming plug-in model Prius averages 65 mpg in real-world testing. That's about 15 more than the 2010 Prius—the current leader in fuel efficiency.

The dashboard looks primitive, especially next to the Ford hybrid dash that grows leaves when you hypermill. But it's rated at 50mpg under mixed driving, and is supposed to be faster than the old.

According to The Nikkei, Toyota is working on more than just a Prius with a solar panel to run the A/C. They are designing a completely solar-powered car...though they intend to cheat a bit.

Apparently, according to Toyota, in the next few years a new feature for the Prius will be that it can fold itself up into a suitcase. That's not all! It'll be able to be unfolded into a car while you're jumping from space. You can then get into your space Prius and land on one of those sky-based tube highways that I…

In a Nikkei article set to publish Monday, it was revealed that Toyota has green lit plans to offer solar panels on its popular Prius hybrid vehicle. The solar panel option will be available on the high-end Prius model when it receives a redesign in 2009. Strangely, the Japanese business newspaper also reports that…

Here's a simple, compelling argument we read in Wired that shows a used car may be a more ecologically sound choice than a new Prius:

While the Prius is more practical than high efficiency solar vehicles, why not add some solar to the Prius anyway? This solar kit from SEV seamlessly installs onto a Prius' roof and claims to add up to 20 miles per day of electric mode driving/increase fuel economy up to 29%. Compatible with Prius models from 2004-06,…