Detroit Auto Show Top 5

If you're Toyota and you've just posted your first operating loss in 70 years do you take your foot off the throttle? Not hardly. Rather than rest on the laurels associated with the world's best-selling hybrid, Toyota has produced a 2010 Prius that improves upon nearly every aspect of its forebear.

Fuel efficiency? Try 50 mpg, up from 46 mpg. Performance? 0-60 mph in 9.8sec, down from 10.4sec. Utility? five more cubic feet of passenger space and a larger cargo area. Innovation?

Toyota's first “belt-less” engine, a smaller, lighter hybrid system, regenerative braking, solar-powered ventilation and a development program that resulted in more than 1,000 patent applications.

All this in a third generation Prius that has grown by about half an inch in length, but retains the same wheelbase and a distinctive shape that is ever so slightly more aerodynamically efficient than its predecessor and seemingly destined to continue its elite status among the world's hybrids.