Toyota Prius review

This is the best Prius we’ve ever driven. Not a particularly high bar to clear, but still. This latest Prius drives with more purpose and composure than any that came before it.

The first thing you notice is how nose-first it feels. The steering is light and numb, but introduce some lock and the front end swings around as though on a predetermined path; like a helter skelter. The chassis doesn’t exactly embrace corners but nor does it fall to bits. As this is a hatch, there isn’t too much roll.

Then there’s the ride. The Prius is based on the same platform as the Corolla, although the suspension is slightly different (both get MacPherson struts up front, but the Prius has double wishbones at the rear unlike the Corolla’s multi-link set-up). It’s comfortable and sorts out imperfections in the road without much fuss; over crests and dips you don’t get thrown around. Good stuff.

So far so good.

You’ve jinxed it. Rather than a conventional automatic - which flicks through a set number of ratios - Toyota runs an e-CVT which can theoretically produce an infinite number of ratios (Constantly Variable Transmission, geddit?) for maximum efficiency. Except… you get deafening bursts of engine noise under acceleration as the car juggles electricity and petrol, and good grief is it loud. And coarse. The  2.0-litre 4cyl in there isn’t going to win any prizes for musicality.

At a steady cruise, the Prius is quiet. Very quiet. Or maybe our ears are just ringing from getting up to speed in the first place. Perhaps this is the price you pay for unparalleled fuel economy.

Why, just how frugal is it?

Well, not as frugal as the 403.6-565.0mpg WLTP claim, which genuinely made us laugh out loud. But with no charge in the battery you can still count on about 60mpg in mixed driving. No other manufacturer gets as close to this kind of efficiency as Toyota does with its cars. Think of it as a cost of living cheat code.

Keep up with the charging and you could conceivably go weeks without dipping into the fuel tank. 53 miles of electric-only range is the claim (44 if you’ve gone for the bigger wheels), but knock a third off that for a more accurate real-world estimate. Get yourself on one of those cheap overnight electricity tariffs and you’ll be laughing.

And you don’t need to worry about performance either: the Prius will do up to 84mph without needing to awake the engine, and while progress is a little slower when relying on the motor only (it can generate 161bhp on its own), it’s brisk enough for most scenarios.