Hybrid king
Despite no-frills nature, Toyota’s Prius still reigns.
Overview Iconic vehicle that kick-started the hybrid segment
Pros Fantastic fuel economy, longevity Cons Dreary interior
Value for money Fair What would I change? Overhaul the entire cabin, offer a nicer colour palette
Hear the words “green car” and chances are the Prius comes to mind. Toyota’s distinctive wedge-shaped icon has become the de facto poster child for the hybrid movement, and a status symbol for the eco-conscientious. It wasn’t always so. Two decades ago, fuel was plentiful and “cheaper than bottled water,” according to Bob Carter, Toyota’s North American VP of operations. The Prius was regarded as little more than a “science project, or marketing ploy”.
When the first Prius was introduced in 1997, the hybrid vehicle segment simply didn’t exist. So Toyota had to create one, launching a campaign to educate the public on the viability of hybrid cars. Early adopters were intrigued, but Toyota knew that if the Prius was to gain mass acceptance, it was crucial to convince mainstream consumers that a hybrid vehicle could fit seamlessly into their lives, with no compromise or inconvenience. Allying with events such as “Earth Day”, Toyota was the first automaker to use the Internet as a marketing platform, and to use a live chat format for sales support. “This thing is going to change the world,” declared Wired, the leading magazine for emerging technologies.
The Prius’s modest initial production run of 1,000 vehicles per month was doubled when orders came flooding in. In 2003, production plans were upped to 3,000 vehicles — yet a staggering 17,500 orders were placed. The third generation Prius received 180,000 orders the first month.
By 2009, the Prius was the reigning leader of hybrid mobility, selling 3.8 million units globally and, Toyota claims, “saving over 3 billion gallons of fuel”. With 70 per cent of the market, Toyota and Lexus sell more hybrids than all other automakers combined.
There are now four different Prius models to choose from: Prius C, Prius V, and this one, the Prius Liftback, which is also available as a plug-in hybrid.
As a technical game- changer and symbol of social conscience the Prius is pretty darned exciting.
But as a car? Not so much.
It doesn’t help much that my tester’s paint scheme is the anonymous equivalent of a dark grey suit. The Prius’s characteristic wedge shape has very little to do with style — and everything to do with function. From its smooth, featureless face, flat sides, and arching roof — right down to the little “flick” of a spoiler — the Prius is designed to slip through the air with as little resistance as possible.
The cabin has all the panache of a licence renewal waiting room: durable, efficient and drearily dated. Despite being a $33,000 car, the Prius features more hard plastics than a $10,000 subcompact.
Ins t r umentation is housed in a flat binnacle on top of the dashboard, the rest of the dash is an uninterrupted expanse of grey plastic. There’s a graphic touch screen, but it’s pretty small by today’s standards and the graphics are laughably one-dimensional when you consider some of its competitors’ creative, full-colour displays.
The “floating” centre console was probably rather daring when it debuted almost a decade ago, but the stor- age space beneath is oddly shaped, hard to access, and, for reasons hard to fathom, hides the seat heaters within its recesses.
There’s industrial grey carpeting on the floors, and seats are covered in ”Simulated leather” (known less formally as “vinyl”). But they’re comfortable enough and there’s plenty of room for four people — five if you push it. Headroom is excellent, thanks to the tall roofline. Despite the battery pack’s intrusion into the trunk floor, there’s 612 litres of cargo space, which increases to 1,120 when the rear seats are flopped down. The handy liftback provides a wide opening for easy loading of large items.
When it comes to driving character, the Prius is like Spock; all logic and no emotion. Everything about this car is engineered for efficiency, and if that comes at the expense of fun, so be it. The engagement comes not from the driving, but through admiration of the technology.
Thanks to Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive System, which uses a combination fourcylinder combustion engine and a pair of electric motors, the Prius actually achieves lower fuel consumption in the city than on the highway. Energy retrieved through regenerative braking is stored in the battery pack beneath the trunk floor, and is used to supplement engine performance, or run the car entirely in EV mode in the city.
While the official fuel economy ratings for the Prius are 3.7 L/100 km city and 4.0 L highway, visit any hypermiling or hybrid vehicle forum. Lowering your fuel consumption (which can be monitored on the graphic display) through more efficient driving becomes irresistibly compelling, and probably explains why most of us find those Prius drivers so annoying as they trundle along, four km below the speed limit and coasting to the stop lights. It’s not a fun car to drive fast, so the satisfaction comes from achieving the lowest fuel consumption rate possible. I’m a lousy hypermiler and still managed an average of 5.4 L/100 km.
Its advantage in stop and go traffic over traditionally powered vehicles means the Prius is not only consuming less fuel, but spewing fewer toxins into the atmosphere.
A fourth generation, 2016 Prius is expected to arrive late this year. Built on Toyota’s new Global Architecture, the new Prius will reportedly feature a lower centre of gravity and better handling.