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How do you take a car that is notoriously uncool and suddenly 360 make cool?

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Well, a good start is nearly doubling the horsepower.

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That's exactly what Toyota has done here. This is the 2023 Prius Prime and it is up 99 horsepower.

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And in a car that started with 120, that is a big difference.

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And the good does not stop there. Let's have a look. Starting with the looks, this thing is fantastic.

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I don't know how they have been able to take the Prius body language

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and turn it into something that looks good, but they certainly have managed it.

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You can see right here, this windshield is raked so low

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and it really adds just the low nature of this car.

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Like if you look here, it only comes up to like my nipples or so.

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This thing is a very low to the ground car and I think it looks great.

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Like look at that headlight. We've got the top of the range model with the 19-inch rims,

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although you might want to consider stepping it down to the 17s

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because those get you 72 kilometers of range. Whereas these 19-inch rims, because the arrow is worse,

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only net you 64 kilometers of all electric range.

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That said though, you have a gas engine too, so you're not too concerned about that.

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Now for the door handles, we get just normal ones right here, which work just great.

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That isn't something that I should have to point out, but a lot of car companies really like screwing them up.

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Like Toyota did on the back of this. These are kind of weird.

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That said though, they're easy enough to operate and there is another one right here if the electronic opener doesn't quite work.

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For charging, you only get to use AC and not DC,

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although it has a 13.6 kilowatt hour battery. So with 240 volts, you're able to charge it all the way up in only four hours.

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That's pretty reasonable, I think. Around back, the excellent looks continue with the only problem being

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that we don't have a massive wing. I'm sure the aftermarket's already on that one.

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Also, we have a power lift gate. I don't know if that's entirely necessary on a Prius, but this one has it.

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And we do not have a whole lot of cargo space back here.

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You're able to fit like maybe six backpacks from LTTstore.com,

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maybe a checked luggage and a carry-on and that's it.

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Toyota, please bring back the Prius V. That was a real good one.

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Hopping into the back seat, there is more than enough leg room,

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although I do not have anywhere close to enough headroom.

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This right here with the sort of tear dropy, swoopy shape.

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If you're any taller than about five-eight or so, you're going to have a bad time.

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If you are on the shorter side, though, these are very comfortable seats.

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We've got a nice little armrest here, as well as on this top trim model.

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We've got heated rear seats, as well as two USB type Cs and a 120-volt AC.

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Hopping into the driver's seat, this is an excellent spot to be.

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The headroom problems are more than solved and these seats are exceptional.

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You have all of the adjustments that you expect and on this one right here,

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they are all electric and just every single bit that you touch,

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like the steering wheel, this right here, that, all of it just feels great.

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That said, a lot of the stuff that you don't does not. Like right here, oh man, that is some cheap feeling plastic.

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These right here visors, and this bar in the middle, man, what is on the go with that?

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That said, I don't really care about any of that because at the end of the day,

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none of that really matters for your driving experience.

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Now, one thing that you might have seen is that this is offered in the US and some European

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countries with a solar roof. We cannot get that in Canada and there are two reasons for that.

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First of all, winter. You don't get a whole lot of sun then here.

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But also in Canada, apparently sunroofs are way more popular than in other places and

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I just really wish that this one would open. It's really too bad that you only get sort of like a little

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half sunroof thing. It's strange. In here, the storage is good.

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We've got our hashtag wireless charger or hashtag hidden compartment.

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Another little compartment there, two cup holders and a nice bit of space in here

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with loads of USB-C all over the place.

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Toyota has maintained buttons where you want them, even though we don't have dual climate,

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which is kind of strange given how well option this is in basically every other way.

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Also on the steering wheel, we have some nice buttons and they don't have piano black over

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the whole thing. So it doesn't look horrible.

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Nice. There is a bit of 2023 car nonsense in here.

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Like we have the nice big 12 inch touchscreen, which works fine.

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But it's just annoying because they have all of these nice buttons on the left until you

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go to Android Auto, where if you need to access any of the cars functions, you need to go here,

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here, back to Toyota and now you have it.

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They just had this bar stay here all the time.

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That would be great. What also is really annoying is that you have settings for all kinds of stuff in here,

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like a vehicle customize. But what is notably missing are the safety features.

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If you want to do any of that, you need to come into this right here.

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They're a MID. It is somewhere between a dash and a heads up display.

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And although it looks pretty good, it is annoying as hell to use.

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So we can go in here to the menu, use this control down to settings and everything.

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It's like a first gen GoPro over here.

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It's just all like PCS, PDA, parking assist, RCTA.

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If you know what that stuff means, like rear cross traffic alert,

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it's not all that bad. But if you don't, for every single thing in here, you'll need to go to the owner's manual.

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If only they had a massive 12 inch touchscreen right here where they could be like RCTA,

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that is rear cross traffic alert. And it does this and this and have a nice little blurb right here compounding that problem.

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Half of the settings in here are in settings sub menus.

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I constantly have an issue with the front cross traffic alert.

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It is terrible. And every single time that I turn the car on and off, it gets reset.

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I have to come all the way in here, three menus deep to turn it off.

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20 button presses to get that every single time.

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Overall though, this right here shockingly looks better than what they had in the Lexus RZ.

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Well, in the RZ, it does not make a bad car good.

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But in the case of the Prius, this does not make a good car bad.

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Chucking it in reverse first, we have quite a nice 360 camera.

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Not sure that's required, but if you want it is available,

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let's go for an actual drive now. Foot on the brake, foot on the gas, it gets mad.

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Oh, there we go.

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That poor CVT. We now have a zero to 60 of 6.8 seconds, which is not particularly rapid, but compared to the 10

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that it had before, it is a massive difference. You can do things like merge on a hill with this now, and it's not absolutely terrifying.

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And the best part is that if you want to be going into a corner, it is heaps of fun.

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I'm going to just come in here.

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Those poor tires. This came on Michelin premises all seasons, and these poor things cannot keep up with the torque

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that this has. You are just going around any sort of a tight corner, and it is just one tire fire all the time.

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I never thought that I would be wanting a limited slip differential in a Prius, but here we are.

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Andy, I am driving a Prius right now and we are laughing.

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There is a good chance that the vast majority of your driving in the Prius Prime

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will be spent like this in EV only mode. You have 64 kilometers of range, which chances are is good enough to get you to and from work

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without burning any petrol at all. This is great because this arrived with a full tank of gas two weeks ago, and I have got,

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well, basically a full tank of gas still. It has been awesome.

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That said, though, if you really want to get into it, that gas engine can come in handy.

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Now, shockingly, even though they have this red interior trim here,

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they've managed to keep the suspension just, it's like perfect, guys.

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They have hit such a good balance of comfort, even on these 19-inch rims, and good handling.

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So you can sort of just dip it into corners. It's very planted, feels great on the highway, great at low speeds.

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Excellent job, Toyota.

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Tires. The most hilarious part of this is that I have just been press carhooning this the entire time

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that I've had it, and I'll arrive home and it'll just be like, trip summary, you used

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4.5 liters per 100 kilometers. Guys, that's like hypermiling almost every single other car.

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They say that you can do 1.5 liters per 100 kilometers, and I believe them if you aren't just

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all the time. One thing that also adds to the sportiness of this is that it has quite a low seating position,

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especially with the way that the windshield is raked back. So it does actually kind of feel like a sports car.

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It's neat. It's nice for it for you guys.

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Now, one thing that isn't very sports car-like is that engine sound.

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It has a CVT transmission, and it's just with the whole time.

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But whatever. It's torquey.

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I still like it. Chances are also you'll just be drowning it out.

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Now, on our top trim model, we have the JBL sound system, which comes with some of the

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least well-integrated tweeters that I have ever seen in a car.

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But fortunately, it does sound pretty good.

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Play Crab Rave. Now, here we have eight speakers, six up front, two in the back, no subwoofer, and you do certainly

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miss that lack of sub-base. It rolls off somewhere right around 45 hertz.

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So anything that's really low, you are not going to get.

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Also, they have really boosted the mid-base, so I had to knock it back a bit.

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But once I did, it sounds really quite good.

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We have a solid phantom center image, so it's sort of like there's

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a center speaker when there actually isn't, and it's just quite satisfying.

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Well, it is until you turn it up.

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At lower volumes around town, it's fine. But if you're on like a rougher highway road and have to turn it up a bit,

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there is quite a bit of dynamic range compression,

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and the whole thing sort of just bounces.

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It's not fantastic. I would happily live with this sound system every day though,

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and it isn't the sort of thing that makes me just hate it like I did with the Lexus RZ.

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One thing that would be a huge upgrade in this car would be improved sound deadening.

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Added to like the doors under the floor, it would be night and day.

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There is almost no wind noise in this, so if you're able to cut down on the tire noise,

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it would be serene in here. Also, I forgot to mention it before, but if you pull back on the little lever right here,

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you get regen braking. Now to adjust it, you have to go into that really stupid MID thing, whatever.

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There are clearly spots here for where there could be paddles, but they don't exist.

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But oh well, I just always whack it to full braking and have not looked back since.

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It improves the feel of driving a car so much in my opinion,

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because you're able to sort of just balance the car around corners with the throttle,

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sort of like a manual transmission car, and it just makes driving so much more engaging

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than just like a normal automatic slash box feel.

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The Prius Prime is equipped with Toyota Safety Sense 3,

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and that comes with some really cool stuff like traffic jam assist.

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That lets you do basically full autonomous driving up to 40 kilometers per hour,

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so if you're stuck in some really slow traffic,

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it'll basically just do the job for you. This also has some of the best adaptive crews on the market,

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so you can really easily just come up on someone that's sort of stopped in front of you

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and trust that the car is going to figure it all out, and it's just very confidence inspiring.

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But isn't as confidence inspiring as the Lane Centering Assist,

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which is a more middle of the road? Well, it's sort of all around the middle of the road.

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But whatever, I turn that off in almost everything because I sort of like driving my car still.

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So the 2023 Prius Prime, I think it is freaking fantastic.

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If you're looking for something that is really fuel efficient

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and you aren't quite ready to go full electric, this thing is just exceptional.

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They have given it enough power that it is now fun to drive.

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It is exceptionally comfortable, and if I had a long old commute every single day,

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I would be getting this thing. The Prius Prime starts at $40,000 Canadian,

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although fully specced like what we have, it goes up to 50.

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That said, though, it now qualifies for EV rebates,

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so depending on where you are, it might be quite a bit less.

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I just think you did a great job, Toyota, yay.

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Just like you did a great job watching this video, hit like,

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get subscribed, and just have a great old day. See you later.