Toyota confirms photos making the rounds of the interwebz are are indeed shots of the 2010 Prius that no one was supposed to see until the Detroit auto show in January.

As we told you a few months ago, the next-gen Prius offers more of the same. And indeed, the leaked pix first shown over at Priuschat.com reveal a car that looks pretty much like the Prius you’ll find in showrooms today, but with slightly rounder edges, cat-eye headlamps, integrated fog lights and the bulbous badge Toyota’s designers love so much.

Toyota isn’t saying much beyond "yep, that’s the next Prius."

"What we can tell you, however, is this: This new Prius will retain all of the virtues of the model that precedes it," the company writes on Open Road blog. "It’s about the same size as its forebear, but with more interior room and better fuel economy. But you expected nothing less, right?"

The interior doesn’t look any roomier in the one leaked photo, but at least it’s lost some of the space-age styling. And while Honda cribbed from Toyota in designing the next-gen Insight, it looks like the shifter in the Prius was inspired by that weird rally shifter in the Civic Si hatchback.

Still no word on what’s under the new skin, but the rumor is Toyota plans to give the Prius a little more oomph. Car & Driver says it will get a 1.6-liter gasoline engine, a slight bump from the 1.5 currently under the hood. Motor Trend says there will be a 1.8-liter engine producing 100

horsepower. Added with the output of the electric motor, total power rises from 110 hp to 150 between now and 2010, according to MT, but the 2010 will retain the same fuel economy as the current model. In either case, the car will most likely still use Toyota’s tried-and-true nickel metal hydride batteries.

More photos:

A side-by-side comparison of the 2010 (top) and 2009 Priuses, Prii, Priora or whatever the plural of Prius is:

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