Toyota Prius Review & Prices

When you think of a hybrid, you think of a Toyota Prius. It’s so synonymous with being an eco-conscious car choice, it’s a bit like ordering a ‘Coke’ or using a ‘Hoover’. While previous Prius models were head over heart purchases, the new model changes that with its genuinely stylish design, yet still retains its fuel-sipping hybrid engine.

If you’re considering the Prius you might also consider other plug-in hybrid models, such as the Audi A3, Peugeot 308 or Hyundai Tucson.

Now, while the Priuses of old have been rather dowdy or, if you’re being particularly harsh, downright ugly, this new one is a real looker. The roof now slopes down gracefully towards the rear of the car, and the wheels are pushed right out to either end - this makes the new Prius look a lot more athletic.

Next to the Corolla, which is Toyota’s other hybrid family hatchback, the Prius looks like a futuristic concept car - an impression helped by the stylish front and glitzy rear light bar.

Inside, it’s rather more conventional, but there are some interesting features here too. The driver information is presented on a high-set screen that you look at over the steering wheel, rather than through it. This means you don’t have to take your eyes so far off the road to check your speed, but it might be obscured by the wheel, depending on your driving position, which can be frustrating.

There’s a big touchscreen infotainment system and a swathe of physical switchgear for climate control – thankfully, Toyota has resisted turning the Prius into an all-screen techfest. The screen itself is sharp and quick to switch between menus when you do use it, though.

Much to the chagrin of the private hire industry, though, the Prius’s interior doesn’t actually have a huge amount of space – while front seat passengers are well catered-for, the rear has very little headroom due to the sloping roofline. Boot space and cabin storage are unimpressive, too.

The Toyota Prius is all about the hybrid engine, and the latest model is only offered as a plug-in model. It’s a really impressive unit, because we saw about 80mpg with the battery regularly topped up, but even if you let it deplete, 50mpg-plus is still possible.

What’s not so impressive is how noisy it is. The CVT gearbox means it rather screams as you accelerate, then once you’re cruising at motorway speeds there’s loads of wind and tyre noise to contend with. The Prius is at its best around town, where you can silently cruise around on electric power, meaning it’s also at its most economical.

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There are two trims for the Toyota Prius, both of which fall just under the £40,000 mark. This puts it in the ballpark of frankly dozens of plug-in hybrid alternatives of all shapes and sizes, from hatchbacks like the Peugeot 308 and Audi A3, to SUVs like the Hyundai Tucson and Ford Kuga.

Smooth and easy to drive around town, but the Toyota Prius is noisy at higher speeds

In town

The Toyota Prius is at its best driving around town, where you can make the most of the electric motor. The battery provides about 40 miles of real-world range, so if you can keep it topped up you might find you rarely call upon the petrol engine. Even when you do, the transition is smooth, and quiet if you don’t accelerate too hard.

It’s comfortable enough, too, smoothing out all but the worst bumps in the road, though clip a pothole and it can rattle through the cabin, as it feels like the Prius is rather light on sound insulation. It’s not a major problem, but an Audi A3 feels a touch more refined.

Despite the sharply angled windscreen, visibility is good looking forward, but it’s pretty poor over your shoulder thanks to large rear pillars and a small rear window.

On the motorway

If you do a lot of motorway miles, the Toyota Prius probably shouldn’t be your first choice. It’s perfectly capable of getting up to speed and comfortable over bumps once you’re there, but there’s a lot of wind and road noise, which isn’t particularly relaxing. You have to raise your voice a bit when talking to passengers, too. Higher speeds will also drain the battery pretty quickly, so it’s not quite as efficient as sticking to town driving.

Still, you get adaptive cruise control as standard, which maintains your speed and distance to other traffic and takes some of the strain out of long trips.

On a twisty road

The latest Toyota Prius is the best version to drive by a country mile, and that extends to how it goes down a twisty road. Okay, so it’s anything but sporty, and the CVT transmission and harsh acceleration sounds suck some of the fun out of it, but the Prius is smooth and controlled enough to enjoy on a back road. The suspension soaks up bumps well so you don’t feel like you’re bouncing about mid corner.

It’s pretty spacious for those in the front, but storage in the cabin and boot isn’t great

Those in the front should find the cabin reasonably spacious. The low roof and the digital dials being positioned above the steering wheel mean it takes a bit longer to find the ideal driving position than normal. However, aside from the low dashboard that can cause minor issues for drivers with long legs, it’s possible to find a comfortable compromise.

What’s not so good is the lack of storage. It’s not terrible, but it’s about the minimum you’d expect – there are two cup holders and a reasonably sized cubby hole beneath the armrest, though the door bins are quite small. You also get a tray to place your phone, and there are a total of four USB-C slots, which could be useful.

Space in the back seats

Things feel a bit more compromised in the back. Kneeroom is good, but that sleek roofline eats into headroom. The seats aren’t as comfortable as those in the front, the floor is high so under-thigh support is limited, and your feet don’t fit under the seat in front, which could combine to make long journeys a bit of a pain. You have the batteries under the floor to thank for that.

You get good shoulder room to the door when you’re sitting in the outer seat, but it’s a bit of a squeeze for three. The middle seat feels rather perched too, but at least there’s plenty of space in the footwell.

Storage is poor in the back, with door bins so small they’re borderline pointless and no pockets in the seats in front. You do get a couple of cup holders in the armrest and two more USB-C slots, though.

There’s loads of space for a child seat, even a bulky forward facing one, and the ISOFIX mounting points are really easy to access, making the Prius a good choice as a family car.

Boot space

Boot space is bigger than the old Prius, but still less than you’d expect from a car of this size at 284 litres. More importantly, the shape means it’s hard to really maximise the space, because it’s too shallow to carry tall items, not particularly wide, and has a high bumper to lift heavy items over. There are no nets to hold items, nor underfloor storage, though you do get a three-pin plug socket.

For comparison, the Prius has about the same capacity as an Audi A3 hybrid’s boot, but you get 348 litres in an equivalent Kia Niro and 558 litres in the plug-in Hyundai Tucson.

You can fold the Prius’ rear seats by reaching into the boot and pulling a lever, which isn’t ideal but not challenging enough to moan about. Once the seats are down you get a useful flat loading area.

It’s all a bit dark and plain inside, but there’s no denying the Prius has a high quality cabin

The Toyota Prius has a low dashboard that seems a bit odd to start with, but means you get a pretty good view forward even with the seat down low. The design is pretty simple and there are a lot of black surfaces, which coupled with the narrow windows makes it feel a touch dark inside.

However, everything you touch feels quality, whether it’s soft-touch materials or just a sense of solid build quality that will stand up to family life.

You get some buttons and toggle switches beneath the infotainment display for your climate controls, which makes a welcome change from fiddly touchscreen systems.

Speaking of which, the infotainment display is a big step up on Toyota systems of old. You get a lovely 12.3-inch display that’s pin-sharp and quick to respond to your inputs. It can get a bit confusing to navigate between menus, but wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity means you rarely have to worry about fiddling with the native systems.

Less intuitive is the digital dials display. You get a smaller steering wheel and the display is set high on the dashboard, with the idea being that it sits just below your eyeline as you're driving. However, it can be difficult to find a driving position that doesn’t block at least part of the screen.

There’s just one engine in the Toyota Prius. It’s a plug-in hybrid that pairs an electric motor and battery with a 2.0-litre petrol engine for an output of 223hp. It uses a CVT automatic gearbox, which means it doesn’t switch between gears like a traditional gearbox. That’s good for economy, but does make the engine sound pretty loud under acceleration.

You might consider that a good trade off for excellent fuel economy. You won’t get the frankly hilarious 565mpg recorded in official tests, but we saw more than 80mpg on journeys where we’d kept the battery topped up, which is decent. However, perhaps more impressive is that when we tried a few trips on a depleted battery the car still reported over 50mpg. Most plug-in hybrids see their economy fall off a cliff once electric power is depleted.

If you top the battery up you should see over 40 miles of electric driving (reasonable compared with the 53-mile official figure), which is enough for most people to get to work and back without using a drop of petrol. There’s no fast charging, but you can top it up on a home charger in about four hours.

That decent electric range means CO2 emission figures are low, making the Prius a good choice for company car buyers, as well as facing minimal Vehicle Excise Duty in the first year.

The Toyota Prius hasn’t been tested by the safety experts at Euro NCAP, but Toyota has a good record, with three of the four cars it has had tested since 2022 scoring top marks.

Adaptive cruise control is included as standard, as is a pre-collision warning system with pedestrian, cyclist and motorbike detection. The car can also read road signs and limit the speed based on this information, as well as plenty more technologies that come as part of Toyota’s Safety Sense package.

This generation of Toyota Prius is too new to feature on the Driver Power customer satisfaction survey, but there shouldn’t be anything to worry about because Toyota has a fantastic reputation for reliability. It came 8th out of 32 brands for owner satisfaction, scoring very highly for reliability, only missing a higher spot because owners weren’t satisfied with things like boot space or the built-in sat nav.

As a sign of its confidence in its cars’ reliability, Toyota offers a warranty of up to 10 years/100,000 miles with every new car. To keep it going beyond the basic three-year warranty you need to get the car serviced at an authorised dealer each year.