Toyota has seen its approval rating among environmentally inclined car-shoppers wane a little in recent months — the frugal Prius continues to earn admiring glances while the hulking new Tundra earns dirty looks. Enter the funky A-BAT Concept, which merges a tough-guy pickup-truck shape and an eco-friendly gasoline-electric hybrid drivetrain. The bold uni-body look, which Toyota claims suggests a future version of the Tacoma compact pickup, clearly takes some inspiration from Honda's Ridgeline and (to give credit where credit is due) Isuzu's nutty VehiCROSS. Because the four-by-eight sheet of plywood is to pickup shoppers what the golf bag is to luxury-sedan shoppers, Toyota is quick to note that the A-BAT will indeed accommodate the former, despite its compact proportions (it's nine inches shorter than a regular-cab Tacoma) and four-foot-by-four-foot bed — an extension at the rear and a passenger-compartment pass-through add two feet to each end. (Interestingly, Toyota is calling the fold-down barrier between the passenger compartment and the bed a "Midgate," but last time we checked, General Motors owned the trademark for that particular descriptor.) As far as the powertrain is concerned, Toyota notes only that beneath the four-passenger A-BAT's short hood resides a Prius-like four-cylinder engine with Hybrid Synergy Drive.
More photos after the break, courtesy of Toyota.
