TOYOTA PRIUS REVIEW: THE HYBRID PIONEER’S BEST VERSION YET

Much-derided eco hero, a foil for Hollywood virtue signalling then minicab favourite, the Toyota Prius is now 26 years old. It might have divided opinion and been only a middling sort of drive, but the Prius pioneered the hybrid trend, sold more than five million and in the process saved about 82 million tonnes of CO2 sluicing into the atmosphere.

But there’s a feeling of a fallen hero with this fifth-generation version, which is only latterly being launched in the UK. You might pithily observe a regiment of minicab drivers can’t be wrong, but in truth the Prius hasn’t sold fantastically well in the UK. It was designed for different markets than ours, where heavily trafficked roads combine with a general mistrust of diesel engines – read Japan and the West Coast of the USA.

When the Mk5 Prius was first shown in 2022 in Los Angeles, Toyota was selling fewer than 600 Priuses annually against 18,000 C-HRs, a boutique car which Toyota hadn’t predicted to sell more than handfuls of in the UK. Minicab drivers, meanwhile, were already raising their sights to the hybrid Corolla Touring, a bland, ultra-reliable and economical estate using the same technology which had debuted in the first Prius in 1997. Buyers looking for a bit more vim were looking at the Yaris hybrid, a smaller but cheaper, more practical and economical alternative, again using the same epicyclic petrol-electric technology.

Hybrid leaving port

Besides, hadn’t the hybrid ship left port? With the ban on combustion sales mooted to be moving back to 2030 under the new Labour Government and increasingly stringent EV-mandated sales of 22 per cent this year and 28 per cent next year, rising to 80 per cent by 2030, it seems battery electric has won. In only 13 years, Tesla boss Elon Musk appears to have convinced European legislators and politicians the EV is the only answer to mass individual mobility, although not everyone agrees.

Did best become the enemy of better? British private buyers seem to think so and there’s increasing evidence that they are prepared to wait longer – and pay more – for pure petrol or petrol/electric hybrid cars, which are in short supply due to the EV mandate fines of £15,000 per non-compliant vehicle sold in any particular year. Here, again, Tesla wins as it trousers grants paid by non-compliant car makers to offset their combustion sales. If you want to see how this works, try ordering a combustion-engined Ford, for example.

So, after two years of beard-stroking, Toyota UK bosses finally decided to import the new Prius V before it became the old Prius V, but only the plug-in hybrid (PHEV), not the self-charging hybrid version which is what most people think of in regard to the Prius. 

The future has become more uncertain still because no one knows whether the Government will reinstate the derogation for PHEV cars to 2035 when it reinstates the 2030 cut-off for combustion sales. Apparently, one former Toyota boss had more than 220 meetings with the previous government when it was establishing its cut-off dates for combustion cars. Heaven knows how many more times his replacement will have to schlep to Westminster before a decision is made. What might concentrate minds is that Toyota is a major employer in the UK, with an engine plant at Deeside and a car factory at Burnaston – a decision on the future of those plants is due in the next couple of years.

Low and slippery

The new Prius style is low and sleek, with an aerodynamic coefficient of 0.27Cd. Unlike the previous generations (especially the first), this gen-five car is good looking, without the wackiness of Toyota alternative-fuel vehicles of the past.

It’s a four-door hatchback (the Prius stopped being a saloon with the Mk 2 of 2003-4), 4,599mm long, 1,782mm wide without the mirrors, 1,420mm high and with a 2,750mm wheelbase. That’s 50mm lower and 46mm shorter than the outgoing model, but with an additional 50mm in the wheelbase.

Those proportions give it a better stance. The low-slung wedge shape marks it out as not just the sportiest-ever Prius, but something you’d feel quite proud to have on your drive.

It weighs between 1,545 and 1,610kg depending on specification and it can’t tow anything. The suspension is front MacPherson strut with a double-wishbone independent rear; the specifications all speak of a fine ride and handling, although that hasn’t been the case with the Prius in the past.

In essence, the latest epicyclic hybrid system has more powerful electric motors than in the past and they spin and prevent the “runaway engine” feel of older generations of Toyota hybrid.

The second and third-generation Prius had nickel-metal-hydride batteries, but from the fourth generation lithium-ion cells have sat under the rear passenger seat. This fifth iteration has a 13.6kWh li-ion NMC cell, with a 161bhp/153lb ft main electric motor and a 2.0-litre 150bhp/140lb ft four-cylinder petrol engine running in the long-stroke Atkinson cycle, which powers the wheels, charges the battery and/or provides current for the motor.

The top speed is 110mph with 0-62mph in 6.8sec – brisk but not blistering. The fuel consumption is quoted at up to 565mpg, nonsense of course, but when the battery was exhausted I saw a comfortable 45mpg powering along a winding A-road, rising quickly to more than 55mpg where regenerative braking and stopping were involved. The range is quoted at 53.5 miles on 17-inch wheels, 44 on 19-inch rims, which means both qualify for five per cent Benefit in Kind (BIK) tax. Recharging the battery takes about 2.5 hours on a 7.4kW household wallbox, overnight with a three-pin plug.

Inside job

The interior is nicely designed, though heavily plasticky and unremittingly dark grey. The style feels like a throwback to the Nineties and very Toyota, in places as dated as Roger Moore in a safari suit.

For buyers looking for the German show-off style with vast amounts of surface changes and different textures, you’d need to look elsewhere, but the quality is high with tight panel gaps, lined storage bins and well-fitting lids.

In the back things aren’t so spacious and sitting behind where I put the driving seat I found my head on the ceiling and my knees in the seat in front. Uber drivers beware, this isn’t the load-carrier of old.

There’s a long, shallow boot (284 litres is small for the class), with a false floor under which lurk a set of tools, a pump and a tin of tyre sealant. If you fold the rear seat backs (60/40 per cent) onto their bases, the load space is pretty flat.

If you are anywhere near 6ft tall and like to adjust the driver’s seat low with a high steering wheel, you’ll find the bottom half of the screen is obscured, although the amount of info crammed on that binnacle is bamboozling that hiding half of it isn’t a problem.

There’s a temperature display, an odometer, a strange, perpetually-illuminated “READY” light, digital road speed, state of charge and eco display giving information about what’s happening to the drivetrain. There are also readouts of battery and fuel contents, two lane-centring displays as well as the posted speed limit, which isn’t always accurate. We haven’t finished yet… there’s a display for the cruise control, plus figures for battery contents as a percentage, miles to top up fuel and a digital clock. Phew.

In the centre, a big landscape touchscreen display is thrust into the middle of the facia and has pretty good graphics, with the heater controls pulled out on piano key switches underneath. Further delving into the software while on the move is tricky and since the car is watching you for signs of inattention to the road, it’s often easier to pull over to perform quite simple operations.

The driver monitoring, lane-keeping and acceleration suppression, proactive driver assistance and overtaking prevention support are as intrusive as they sound. Not so bad you can’t force the car through their potentially risky assistance when required, but it’s difficult to see how this lowest common denominator support makes for a safer drive. I switched off all that I could.  

On the road

It trundles out of the Scottish hotel on battery power alone, feeling compliant rather than floppy on poor roads. If I’d had a pound for every Prius chief engineer who has explained how they have made the new model stiffer, I’d have, well, four pounds. One poor engineer even produced all the bits of metal bracing he had wanted to have welded into the bodyshell. Yet still there’s an unsettled, nervous feeling in the low-speed response and vibration into the cabin from small ripples, road joints and sharp bumps.

On 19-inch Bridgestone tyres, the steering still feels vague in the centre position and slow to react. It’s not a disaster, but is over assisted, with none of the informative build-up of load which characterises rival sporting hatchbacks/coupés. Traction isn’t fantastic either and the brakes are continually mitigating the wheelspin not only out of junctions but also out of tight corners. True, it’s a vast improvement on previous Priuses, but it’s still a long way from agile in a European sense.

Drive it much harder and it improves (a bit), but never feels like a performance car; there’s a feeling that the chassis is undersprung and overdamped, which leaves it feeling loose on undulating roads, but too harsh on straight A-roads. And while the 17-inch wheel option doesn’t look as good as the 19s, they give a better ride quality on the small gritty stuff and better on-centre response to the steering wheel.

It’s that muffled steering response that most lets down this car. So, when the front wheels wash out on a wet and bumpy Scottish B-road, they do it predictably, almost apologetically, but with not much in the way of warning.

The drivetrain is a vast improvement over the previous model with much better torque and the general feel in normal driving is of refinement. Certainly compared with the weird-looking Mk1 of 1997 the Prius is now a well-engineered and mostly good-to-drive car – and light years away from the heavy, crashy EVs which we are expected to embrace as “the future”.

That said the brakes, while strong if you stand on the pedal, feel spongy at the top of the pedal travel and don’t inspire a great deal of confidence, which is strange because Toyota brakes are usually better than this.

The Telegraph verdict

Though its epicyclic hybrid drivetrain is now available pretty much across the entire Toyota/Lexus range, the Prius remains a standard bearer – and this model is vastly more improved and desirable than before. But is the world seeking a better Prius?

It’s not difficult to imagine this as a sort of sleek, four-door coupé with a similar appeal to that of the old Honda Prelude or Toyota Celicas – but then a brace of Ubers steals past and it somehow feels a lot less special.

If Toyota thought it could reinvent the Prius, that its revered status in hybrid circles could carry it through another generation, with style and economy (and the fact that it isn’t yet another electric SUV), then it might be onto something. Even then, sales will only be in the region of  just over 1,000 a year, perhaps.

If you have ever owned a Prius, you’re going to love this new one. If you haven’t, you might want to look elsewhere in the Toyota hybrid range.

Telegraph star rating: Four out of five stars

The facts

On test: Toyota Prius PHEV

Body style: four-door hatchback

On sale: now

How much? from £37,315 (£39,995 as tested)

How fast? 110mph (84mph in EV mode), 0-62mph in 6.8sec

How economical? 403-565mpg (WLTP)

Engine: 1.987cc, four-cylinder petrol with 150bhp/140lb ft, front-wheel drive

Electric powertrain: 13.6kWh lithium-ion NMC with two-motor hybrid system including 161bhp/153lb ft permanent-magnet synchronous main motor

Electric-only range: 53.5 miles on 17in wheels (44 miles on 19in wheels)

Recharging time: 2.5 hours on 7.4kW household wallbox 

Maximum power/torque: 220bhp

CO2 emissions: 12-17g/km (WLTP Combined)

VED: £0 first year, then £180 

Warranty: three years, with a further 10 years/100,000 miles if serviced by Toyota

The rivals

Kia Niro 4 Premium PHEV, from £41,070

Now in its second generation, this SUV/crossover has the occasionally shrill Hyundai/Kia plug-in hybrid (PHEV) drivetrain of a 1.6-litre direct-injection petrol engine and a six-speed dual-clutch DCT gearbox. The electric range is at most 40 miles (8 per cent BIK tax bracket) with a 0-62mph time of 9.8sec and a top speed of 100mph, fuel consumption is quoted at between 353 and 282mpg depending on spec. The cheapest Niro PHEV is £35,525.

Volkswagen Golf PHEV GTE, from £39,750

The plug-in range starts with the cheaper e-hybrid, but the GTE is the monster of the piece with a total of 268bhp, 0-62mph in 6.6sec and an all-electric range of 88 miles, which puts it in a favourable five per cent BIK tax bracket. It’s a smaller hatchback than the Prius and this latest model is really a previous-generation Golf 7 with a few bells and whistles, but the software is much improved and the six-speed DSG gearbox has also been reworked.

Toyota Corolla, from £29,599

The nameplate has been around since 1966 (though it was replaced by the Auris for a few years in Europe). Available as a 1.8 or 2.0-litre self-charging hybrid hatchback with 138 and 193bhp system output respectively, this is the cooking end of Toyota’s hybrid range – note to self, the 2.0-litre is the better option. The boot isn’t massive, but the driving experience is far better than previous Corollas and while far from the lap of luxury, it feels built-to-last.

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