The Toyota Prius was one of the original ‘green’ cars.
Its hybrid engine allowed it to run partly on electric power to reduce emissions.
Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts were among its celebrity owners.
Your humble Courier scribe hasn’t owned one but he has driven every version of the Prius since 2006.
Recently, Toyota brought a range of their cars up to Scotland and I spent an hour behind the wheel of the new, fifth-generation model.
The plug-in hybrid shares a platform with its sister car the Corolla and pairs a 2.0 litre petrol engine with an electric motor and a 13.6kWh battery.
It’s capable of covering up to 44 miles on battery alone, which will be enough for many people’s daily drives.
More power to your Prius
The most exciting headline is that the new model has had its power boosted by 99bhp.
The petrol engine has 150bhp, with the electric motor adding another 61bhp for a combined 221bhp.
For the first time, the Toyota Prius is exciting as well as economical.
A 0-62mph time of 6.8 seconds endows it with the kind of pace most hot hatchback owners would be pleased with.
I spent an hour driving the Prius around Loch Lomond, Stirlingshire and Perthshire. It really is rather fun to drive.
Give the accelerator a good push and the Prius surges forward. I was able to get past a row of slow-moving traffic on a straight very easily.
It also handles much better than any previous Prius I’ve driven, with good levels of grip and very little body-lean during cornering.
Of course, if you make full use of the performance, you lose a lot of economy.
Under gentle acceleration, the Prius will run on battery power but if you put the foot down the petrol engine kicks in to add its power to the mix.
Economy
According to official figures, the Prius averages 565mpg. That’s ludicrous and shows that our system of measuring economy isn’t fit for purpose.
As is the case with all plug-in hybrids, economy varies wildly depending on how – and how far – you drive the car.
If you keep topping it up from home on a cheap overnight tariff and your daily journey is less than 40 miles, you’ll hardly ever use a drop of petrol and your running costs will be buttons.
Do long journeys on an empty battery and you can expect 50-55mpg, which is still pretty good.
I only had an hour with the car – unlike most manufacturers, Toyota won’t do week-long loans for Scottish journalists – but I’d expect most owners will average 70-80mpg if they use the car for a mixture of shorter and longer journeys.
At 70mph on a stretch of dual carriageway, the Prius was impressively quiet. That coupled with its comfortable ride make it a good option for long motorway journeys.
Inside the new Toyota Prius
The interior of the Prius is spacious and, even as a tall fellow, I found it easy to get a comfortable seating position.
As with virtually all cars these days, there is a large central touchscreen to operate most of the controls.
Commendably, however, Toyota have put physical controls for the heating and fan systems, making them much easier to adjust without taking your eyes off the road.
One minor niggle is that the steering wheel gets in the way of the digital driver’s display, meaning you have to stretch your neck to see some of the information it’s showing you.
Legroom in the back is reasonable, although the sloping ceiling means tall passengers will struggle for headroom a little.
On paper, a 287-litre boot doesn’t sound terrific but there’s a nice big hatchback opening and a long load space.
You’d easily get a week’s worth of shopping or enough luggage for a family weekend trip in there, but my golden retrievers would be complaining about a lack of space for their furry heads.
Cost and verdict
There are two versions, Design and Excel, costing from around £37,000. The Excel version I drove has a £39,995 price tag.
As with all Toyotas, it comes with a 10-year warranty as long as you stick to the main dealer network.
For company car drivers, it costs a lot less in benefit-in-kind than a petrol or diesel, although fully electric models are cheaper still.
During my limited time with the car I was impressed by the new Prius.
It looks good. It’s comfortable to drive and should be very economical to run if you top the battery up at home every night.
And it’s much more powerful and more fun to drive than any previous Prius has been.
Toyota Prius review – facts:
Price: £39,995
0-62mph: 6.8 seconds
Top speed: 109mph
Economy: 565mpg
CO2 emissions: 11g/km
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