{"id":1954103,"date":"2026-05-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1954103"},"modified":"2026-05-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T21:00:00","slug":"toyota-prius-long-term-review-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1954103","title":{"rendered":"Toyota Prius – long-term review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Five months and over 5,000 miles later, I\u2019m coming to the following conclusion on the fifth-gen Toyota Prius.<\/p>\n

This is undoubtedly the best-looking, best-made, best-to-drive Prius of the lot. I never tire of the \u2018is that<\/em> a Prius?!’ shock from mates when they cadge a lift and can\u2019t believe something so brave, sleek and sharp is the descendant of all those frumpy minicabs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That low centre of gravity and relatively modest kerbweight for a modern hybrid means it can be hustled through roundabouts and sliproads as fast as its eco-tyres will allow. And every time I\u2019m tasked with testing a screen-festooned new Mercedes, Tesla or Volkswagen, it\u2019s genuinely refreshing to climb back into the Prius with its umpteen buttons and volume knob.<\/p>\n

But I can\u2019t escape the quandary that a Prius, above all, should be Toyota\u2019s tech leader. A spearhead for next-gen thinking. This one is merely a normcore plug-in hybrid wrapped up in a cool shell. For less money, you can buy PHEVs with more e-range, and more boot space. You can buy very grown-up EVs. And you can buy lots of Toyota hatchbacks and crossovers which are also hybrids with buttons inside. So why does the Prius even exist?<\/p>\n

I put this awkward question to Kohei Yanai, deputy chief engineer of the current Prius. Here\u2019s what he had to say in response.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first gen, second gen, third gen, and fourth gen Prius, [we were] forecasting the [future of] eco-friendly vehicles. But for this fifth gen, we are repositioning the hybrid vehicle. We\u2019ve tried to make it more of an emotional vehicle, with a cool design and good driving performance. Of course, based on the history, customers expect fuel economy, but still even though we change [the car] we still keep the pure economy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fine \u2013 I\u2019ve been averaging economy in the high fifties to the gallon for five months and I\u2019m a harsh use case for a PHEV, with three quarters of my annual mileage on motorways, which saps battery and doesn\u2019t allow any re-gen. When I\u2019m staying closer to home the engine goes days without ever turning on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But still, surely Toyota could\u2019ve just got that performance from the smart-looking Corolla by adding a PHEV system. Why invest in the Prius?<\/p>\n

Yanai-san explains that at first, the mk5 Prius was going to head in an even more radical direction \u2013 to cater totally to the taxi industry. \u201cAt the time we proposed an idea to make the fifth gen Prius a taxi-dedicated vehicle for we – Toyota – thought we [could] contribute to the environment by increased number of [hybrid taxi] vehicles.”<\/p>\n

Yanai-san says the idea got as far as Toyota CEO approval before a radical design proposal was shown and the company decided to go in a different direction, choosing \u201can emotional Prius not a commoditised taxi. The car must still contribute to our overall direction towards carbon neutrality, we wanted to make a Prius the customer can love \u2013 not one you only choose for rational reasons”.<\/p>\n

Honourable sentiments. And it fits with the direction Toyota has gone on in the past decade, from dishwasher-central to outlying bastion of fun cars with creations like the GR Yaris, GR86, and promising future projects like the GR GT and solid state-EV LFA. From Yaris to Land Cruiser, there are now multiple Toyotas we readily recommend not simply because they\u2019re reliable white goods.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m still not sure that\u2019s enough for the Prius. In the hotly fought middle ground of the mainstream, cars have to work so<\/em> hard to tick all the boxes on price and running costs, that design joire d\u2019vivre tends to be a latter consideration on the buying checklist.<\/p>\n

Fuel is expensive. So is all<\/em> energy right now. What would you buy: the hybrid that saves your family the most money, or the less cost-effective hybrid that saves a few quid but tries to look suave doing it?<\/p>\n

I\u2019d love to think it\u2019s the latter, but judging by the amount of Jaecoos, Omodas and Toyota\u2019s own Corollas I see on my daily trudges around the UK motorway network, I\u2019m not sure the maths for a style-over-substance Prius stacks up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five months and over 5,000 miles later, I\u2019m coming to the following conclusion on the fifth-gen Toyota Prius. This is undoubtedly the best-looking, best-made, best-to-drive Prius of the lot. I never tire of the \u2018is that a Prius?!’ shock from mates when they cadge a lift and can\u2019t believe something so brave, sleek and sharp […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-1954103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1954103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1954103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1954103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1954103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}