Toyota Prius review

The Prius starts at £37,315 for the Design trim and peaks at £39,955 for the top-spec Excel trim. As there’s only one powertrain, that’s as complex as the Prius gets right now.

Inevitably you’ll now be asking what you get on both trims. On the entry-level car you get the seven-inch driver display and 12.3in touchscreen, front and rear parking sensors and a reversing camera, keyless entry and start, automatic LED headlights, a six-speaker audio system, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, dual-zone air con, the ambient lighting and the most efficient 17in alloys.

Gloss black alloys and fancier paint is optional. All of the safety gear and active systems that Toyota can throw at the Prius is included on the base-spec car.

Excel puts you on the wheelarch-filling 19s, and adds a digital rear view mirror, rear footwell heating (your passengers will thank you in the winter), synthetic leather upholstery, a memory setting for the driver’s seat, a powered tailgate, and numerous aesthetic changes to the body to give the Prius a more commanding look. You know the kind of thing: piano black bumpers, a gloss black grille surround… etcetera.

We’d save the cash and go for the more affordable one, if it was us. Goes further on electric too.

And if this were to be my company car…

Ah, then sir or madam will want to know that the benefit-in-kind on one of these is eight per cent, courtesy of the Prius’s e-range. First-year tax will cost you nothing as the Prius is rated at 12-17g/km for CO2 output.