BOSTON — When the first Toyota Prius came out twenty years ago, it was for environmentalist wackos and early-adopter do-gooders who didn’t mind driving a weird car, and actually did so proudly. The Prius was (and is) odd-looking because it’s so focused on aerodynamics. Everything on this car is made to maximize fuel economy and, if you drive a long way to work every day, it’s worth a look just for the financial benefits alone.
That said, if you like owning a big truck and driving everywhere by yourself even though you never haul anything, maybe this isn’t the car for you. The Prius is, to put it mildly, controversial. I felt a little conspicuous in the thing, and I live in New England which is full of Prii — and yes, that’s the official plural of Prius. Toyota had a contest. It’s in the dictionary and everything.
The Prius is so unique looking that everyone knows how green you are and, probably, who you voted for. I wanted to put a Trump sticker on the thing solely because it would confuse people. It’d be like putting a Bernie sticker on your pickup and then rolling coal. Confusing and, potentially, hilarious. Trolling and visual weirdness aside, the Prius is what I’ve known it to be for at least ten years: a normal car. Mostly.
It has four doors and heated seats (standard in the XLE trim), absolutely enormous windows and great visibility thanks to the high roofline, Apple CarPlay is standard for 2020, and beginning last year there’s an all-wheel drive variant too. Toyota calls it the Prius AWD-e. It’s a standard front-wheel drive car but at the back there’s a standalone electric, magnet-less rear motor that will power the rear wheels from a stop up to six mph. If more rear wheel torque is needed because of conditions, it can keep driving the wheels up to 43 mph.
Naturally, this means the system runs in front-wheel drive mode most of the time, but the rear wheels get a little kick of power when traction-needs demand it — or just to improve fuel economy with the electric motor like a normal Prius would. On dry roads, you’ll never even notice it. It feels like any other Prius.
The engine turns off when coasting to a stoplight, and kicks on again once you start moving. At very low speeds, the car is capable of driving itself in full EV mode and then the engine (an ultra-efficient 1.8-liter four-cylinder unit making a whopping 96 horsepower) takes over. Unsurprisingly, it isn’t fast. In total, with gas and electric combined, the car puts out 121 hp and 105 lb-ft of torque.
My test unit was an XLE AWD-e trim, the highest in the Prius lineup. With an $800 Advanced Technology Pack that added a heads-up display and slightly better headlights, it priced out at $31,005.
As the Prius is a hatchback, the rear cargo area is absolutely massive. A Costco run was easy to load and there was plenty of space left over. Rear visibility is atrocious thanks to the split rear window that looks huge from the outside but is sloped so aggressively (again, thanks to aerodynamic concerns) that it is tiny from the inside.
The infotainment screen is too small, with a lot of space wasted by unnecessary buttons around the outside and the stereo is pretty terrible. There’s also a dearth of sound dampening, likely to reduce weight and, again, improve fuel economy. The AWD version weighs in at just 3,220 pounds.
But both the heated seats and heated steering wheel work excellently, which is good news for colder climes. My XLE had automatic high beams and windshield wipers, which are increasingly becoming standard on lower-trim vehicles. And there is a full safety suite including automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, adaptive cruise control, lane departure assist, and blindspot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert. Toyota puts most of this in all the cars it sells now and it’s worth calling out and praising them for. Car companies that aren’t on the bandwagon here are going to be left behind soon.
I don’t know that I would buy a Prius, even if I had a long commute. The RAV4 Hybrid appeals to me a bit more and I like the high seating position and, let’s be honest, it’s much more subtle in its good-fuel-economy-having-ness. But if you don’t care if other people know you care about the environment or, more likely, if you want them to know, the Prius remains at the top of its class.
