We would surely welcome a convertible Prius to Toyota's official list of offerings, but we doubt it would end up looking much like this one. Custom ordered by someone who goes by the handle 'exproducer' on Prius Chat, the Waveline Blue sedan has had its roof professionally removed, raising the cost of the Prius from about $28 grand to $46 grand. That's a lot of dough, to be sure. Four-door convertibles are quite rare, and they rarely look as good as their sportier two-door cousins. In this case, beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. The owner loves their car, which is, of course, all that really matters. Still, the general consensus, even among Prius owners, seems to be that this particular Prius lost more than just its roof in this conversion. Whatever your opinions on the looks (we would prefer the window-frames removed), the work that went into this particular custom was very well done. On an efficiency note, the owner claims that their Prius convertible managed to pick up four miles per gallon while driving with the top up, and a loss of just two miles per gallon with it down.
So, who does PM name as the ten best teams? Well, the Philly high school team is on the list (their Hybrid X is pictured above), as are Aptera and Loremo and Tesla Motors and six other teams that will be very familiar to regular AutoblogGreen readers. For now, these nine teams are all solid choices. Wait, nine? Yeah, I'm not convinced that PM is right to add Hybrid Technologies to the Top Ten. Hybrid Technologies is having troubles selling the vehicles they have now (even with reduced prices). PM says that Hybrid Technologies "has already made the 100-mile-per-charge dream a reality" and has "real-world experience in development, marketing and manufacturing." Well, sure, but that didn't make the PT Cruiser taxi a success. Check out PM's list for yourself.
