How do you take a car that is notoriously uncool and suddenly 360 make cool?
Well, a good start is nearly doubling the horsepower.
That's exactly what Toyota has done here. This is the 2023 Prius Prime and it is up 99 horsepower.
And in a car that started with 120, that is a big difference.
And the good does not stop there. Let's have a look. Starting with the looks, this thing is fantastic.
I don't know how they have been able to take the Prius body language
and turn it into something that looks good, but they certainly have managed it.
You can see right here, this windshield is raked so low
and it really adds just the low nature of this car.
Like if you look here, it only comes up to like my nipples or so.
This thing is a very low to the ground car and I think it looks great.
Like look at that headlight. We've got the top of the range model with the 19-inch rims,
although you might want to consider stepping it down to the 17s
because those get you 72 kilometers of range. Whereas these 19-inch rims, because the arrow is worse,
only net you 64 kilometers of all electric range.
That said though, you have a gas engine too, so you're not too concerned about that.
Now for the door handles, we get just normal ones right here, which work just great.
That isn't something that I should have to point out, but a lot of car companies really like screwing them up.
Like Toyota did on the back of this. These are kind of weird.
That said though, they're easy enough to operate and there is another one right here if the electronic opener doesn't quite work.
For charging, you only get to use AC and not DC,
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.
That's pretty reasonable, I think. Around back, the excellent looks continue with the only problem being
that we don't have a massive wing. I'm sure the aftermarket's already on that one.
Also, we have a power lift gate. I don't know if that's entirely necessary on a Prius, but this one has it.
And we do not have a whole lot of cargo space back here.
You're able to fit like maybe six backpacks from LTTstore.com,
maybe a checked luggage and a carry-on and that's it.
Toyota, please bring back the Prius V. That was a real good one.
Hopping into the back seat, there is more than enough leg room,
although I do not have anywhere close to enough headroom.
This right here with the sort of tear dropy, swoopy shape.
If you're any taller than about five-eight or so, you're going to have a bad time.
If you are on the shorter side, though, these are very comfortable seats.
We've got a nice little armrest here, as well as on this top trim model.
We've got heated rear seats, as well as two USB type Cs and a 120-volt AC.
Hopping into the driver's seat, this is an excellent spot to be.
The headroom problems are more than solved and these seats are exceptional.
You have all of the adjustments that you expect and on this one right here,
they are all electric and just every single bit that you touch,
like the steering wheel, this right here, that, all of it just feels great.
That said, a lot of the stuff that you don't does not. Like right here, oh man, that is some cheap feeling plastic.
These right here visors, and this bar in the middle, man, what is on the go with that?
That said, I don't really care about any of that because at the end of the day,
none of that really matters for your driving experience.
Now, one thing that you might have seen is that this is offered in the US and some European
countries with a solar roof. We cannot get that in Canada and there are two reasons for that.
First of all, winter. You don't get a whole lot of sun then here.
But also in Canada, apparently sunroofs are way more popular than in other places and
I just really wish that this one would open. It's really too bad that you only get sort of like a little
half sunroof thing. It's strange. In here, the storage is good.
We've got our hashtag wireless charger or hashtag hidden compartment.
Another little compartment there, two cup holders and a nice bit of space in here
with loads of USB-C all over the place.
Toyota has maintained buttons where you want them, even though we don't have dual climate,
which is kind of strange given how well option this is in basically every other way.
Also on the steering wheel, we have some nice buttons and they don't have piano black over
the whole thing. So it doesn't look horrible.
Nice. There is a bit of 2023 car nonsense in here.
Like we have the nice big 12 inch touchscreen, which works fine.
But it's just annoying because they have all of these nice buttons on the left until you
go to Android Auto, where if you need to access any of the cars functions, you need to go here,
here, back to Toyota and now you have it.
They just had this bar stay here all the time.
That would be great. What also is really annoying is that you have settings for all kinds of stuff in here,
like a vehicle customize. But what is notably missing are the safety features.
If you want to do any of that, you need to come into this right here.
They're a MID. It is somewhere between a dash and a heads up display.
And although it looks pretty good, it is annoying as hell to use.
So we can go in here to the menu, use this control down to settings and everything.
It's like a first gen GoPro over here.
It's just all like PCS, PDA, parking assist, RCTA.
If you know what that stuff means, like rear cross traffic alert,
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.
If only they had a massive 12 inch touchscreen right here where they could be like RCTA,
that is rear cross traffic alert. And it does this and this and have a nice little blurb right here compounding that problem.
Half of the settings in here are in settings sub menus.
I constantly have an issue with the front cross traffic alert.
It is terrible. And every single time that I turn the car on and off, it gets reset.
I have to come all the way in here, three menus deep to turn it off.
20 button presses to get that every single time.
Overall though, this right here shockingly looks better than what they had in the Lexus RZ.
Well, in the RZ, it does not make a bad car good.
But in the case of the Prius, this does not make a good car bad.
Chucking it in reverse first, we have quite a nice 360 camera.
Not sure that's required, but if you want it is available,
let's go for an actual drive now. Foot on the brake, foot on the gas, it gets mad.
Oh, there we go.
That poor CVT. We now have a zero to 60 of 6.8 seconds, which is not particularly rapid, but compared to the 10
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.
And the best part is that if you want to be going into a corner, it is heaps of fun.
I'm going to just come in here.
Those poor tires. This came on Michelin premises all seasons, and these poor things cannot keep up with the torque
that this has. You are just going around any sort of a tight corner, and it is just one tire fire all the time.
I never thought that I would be wanting a limited slip differential in a Prius, but here we are.
Andy, I am driving a Prius right now and we are laughing.
There is a good chance that the vast majority of your driving in the Prius Prime
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
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,
well, basically a full tank of gas still. It has been awesome.
That said, though, if you really want to get into it, that gas engine can come in handy.
Now, shockingly, even though they have this red interior trim here,
they've managed to keep the suspension just, it's like perfect, guys.
They have hit such a good balance of comfort, even on these 19-inch rims, and good handling.
So you can sort of just dip it into corners. It's very planted, feels great on the highway, great at low speeds.
Excellent job, Toyota.
Tires. The most hilarious part of this is that I have just been press carhooning this the entire time
that I've had it, and I'll arrive home and it'll just be like, trip summary, you used
4.5 liters per 100 kilometers. Guys, that's like hypermiling almost every single other car.
They say that you can do 1.5 liters per 100 kilometers, and I believe them if you aren't just
all the time. One thing that also adds to the sportiness of this is that it has quite a low seating position,
especially with the way that the windshield is raked back. So it does actually kind of feel like a sports car.
It's neat. It's nice for it for you guys.
Now, one thing that isn't very sports car-like is that engine sound.
It has a CVT transmission, and it's just with the whole time.
But whatever. It's torquey.
I still like it. Chances are also you'll just be drowning it out.
Now, on our top trim model, we have the JBL sound system, which comes with some of the
least well-integrated tweeters that I have ever seen in a car.
But fortunately, it does sound pretty good.
Play Crab Rave. Now, here we have eight speakers, six up front, two in the back, no subwoofer, and you do certainly
miss that lack of sub-base. It rolls off somewhere right around 45 hertz.
So anything that's really low, you are not going to get.
Also, they have really boosted the mid-base, so I had to knock it back a bit.
But once I did, it sounds really quite good.
We have a solid phantom center image, so it's sort of like there's
a center speaker when there actually isn't, and it's just quite satisfying.
Well, it is until you turn it up.
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,
there is quite a bit of dynamic range compression,
and the whole thing sort of just bounces.
It's not fantastic. I would happily live with this sound system every day though,
and it isn't the sort of thing that makes me just hate it like I did with the Lexus RZ.
One thing that would be a huge upgrade in this car would be improved sound deadening.
Added to like the doors under the floor, it would be night and day.
There is almost no wind noise in this, so if you're able to cut down on the tire noise,
it would be serene in here. Also, I forgot to mention it before, but if you pull back on the little lever right here,
you get regen braking. Now to adjust it, you have to go into that really stupid MID thing, whatever.
There are clearly spots here for where there could be paddles, but they don't exist.
But oh well, I just always whack it to full braking and have not looked back since.
It improves the feel of driving a car so much in my opinion,
because you're able to sort of just balance the car around corners with the throttle,
sort of like a manual transmission car, and it just makes driving so much more engaging
than just like a normal automatic slash box feel.
The Prius Prime is equipped with Toyota Safety Sense 3,
and that comes with some really cool stuff like traffic jam assist.
That lets you do basically full autonomous driving up to 40 kilometers per hour,
so if you're stuck in some really slow traffic,
it'll basically just do the job for you. This also has some of the best adaptive crews on the market,
so you can really easily just come up on someone that's sort of stopped in front of you
and trust that the car is going to figure it all out, and it's just very confidence inspiring.
But isn't as confidence inspiring as the Lane Centering Assist,
which is a more middle of the road? Well, it's sort of all around the middle of the road.
But whatever, I turn that off in almost everything because I sort of like driving my car still.
So the 2023 Prius Prime, I think it is freaking fantastic.
If you're looking for something that is really fuel efficient
and you aren't quite ready to go full electric, this thing is just exceptional.
They have given it enough power that it is now fun to drive.
It is exceptionally comfortable, and if I had a long old commute every single day,
I would be getting this thing. The Prius Prime starts at $40,000 Canadian,
although fully specced like what we have, it goes up to 50.
That said, though, it now qualifies for EV rebates,
so depending on where you are, it might be quite a bit less.
I just think you did a great job, Toyota, yay.
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