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The Toyota Prius Prime plug-in is the all-time hybrid the automaker sells. Equip a Prius Prime the same fashion equally the popular regular Prius hybrid, and the departure is less than $1,000. With the Prius Prime number, fifty-fifty if you drive xx-25 miles to work and back daily, you'll exist running exclusively on cheap electricity during the work week. Because information technology's a Toyota, it comes standard with an excellent safe suite called TSS-P. Even every bit a compact auto, the Prius Prime is reasonably comfortable for four adults. And it was adequately repose and comfortable on the highway. This is a solid, Corolla-size vehicle that happens to be a hybrid.

How the Prius Prime number Works

All Prius Prime models combine the same forepart-drive layout, an viii.viii-kWh, 265-pound lithium-ion battery pack with an EPA range of 25 miles, two electric motor-generators, and the "bridled fury" of a 95-hp 1.8-liter Atkinson-cycle inline-four gas engine (descriptor courtesy of Car and Driver). Total output, gas and battery, is 121 hp. The planetary gear system finer works as a continuously variable transmission.

Hop in the Prius Prime and it shares many features common to the Prius and few other cars: The layout is flowing and modern. The instrument panel, what's unremarkably behind the steering wheel, is in the center tiptop of the dashboard. Some volition take a while to warm to it. The eye console includes a shiny white plastic tray. There's a nubby bluish-knobbed shifter attached to the dashboard. The Prius Prime number delivers leisurely 0-60 acceleration times of about 10.5 seconds with all systems running, and about two seconds more on battery power only. A Tesla this is not.

If the battery pack is full, the Prius Prime starts up in EV fashion–or you can push a dashboard push button for hybrid manner and more often than not run on combustion engine power. A dissever EV Auto push button lets the car determine when to run in hybrid or EV power. At that place are also Eco, Normal and Power modes. Eco makes the automobile advance slower; Ability seems a chip quicker than Normal at doling out horsepower. In urban center or highway driving, there's enough power, but this is not the car for passing on two-lane highways. In my driving, I found the bombardment mode was proficient for just over 20 miles. One time EV mode is effectively used up, the battery notwithstanding has enough power to run in hybrid mode, or what Toyota calls charge-sustaining manner. Reverse is an electric-only fashion.

Current Toyota Prius hybrid sedan (top) and Prius Prime plug-in hybrid bear stiff family resemblance. Prime number is 4 inches longer at 183 inches; both are 58 inches high.

Urban Runabout That Can Accept Long Trips

I tested the 2022 Prius Prime number (which shipped spring 2022) and the 2022 Prius Prime number should be essentially the aforementioned. Information technology is an offshoot of the fourth-generation Prius that launched equally a 2022 model. The test car was comfortable and quiet in the mode most modernistic compact cars in the 180-190-inch long range are. There'southward but and then much a meaty car with a brusque wheelbase can do to avoid pavement bumps. Front and rear seating is reasonable for adults. At that place is no middle rear seat on the Prius Prime; the mainstream Prius seats a fifth passenger snugly in the eye rear.

The Prius Prime is best described as a urban center and suburban auto that can go on long trips, since information technology's non saddled with being a pure bombardment-electric vehicle as the similarly sized Tesla Model 3 or smaller Nissan Leaf are. EV purists may not like that the Prius Prime in EV Auto fashion jumps back and forth from gas to electric, but they can't complain about the single-tank range: 500-plus miles. Officially, it'southward rated at 54 mpg combined city-highway and 133 mpg-eastward, a measure out of the efficiency of the electric bulldoze. MPG-e measures how far you can become electrically on the equivalent of the 115,000 BTUs in one gallon of gasoline, which is equal to 33.seven kilowatt hours of electricity. Charging takes 5.5 hours on 120 volts, or ii.2 hours on 240 volts.

The Prius Prime Premium and Advanced trim lines get an 11.half dozen-inch LCD brandish. No Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, though.

The Prius Prime number Trim Walk

The Prius Prime comes in three trim lines, or model variants.

  • The base of operations Prius Prime number Plus, $27,995 list including $895 freight, comes with a 7-inch eye stack LCD, Toyota Entune sound, navigation, an app suite, and TSS-P, Toyota's suite of safety features: lane continue aid, stop-and-go adaptive prowl control, automated high beams, and a pre-collision/pedestrian detection system with automatic braking. The only option (on all iii trim lines) is premium paint ($395) on ii of the half dozen exterior colors.
  • The Prius Prime Premium, $29,695 list, adds a Tesla-like vertical LCD (11.6 inches diagonal), Qi smartphone charger, and nicer seat trim.
  • The Prius Prime number Advanced, $33,995, further adds blind spot detection (non available as an option below Advanced), caput-up display, parking sonar and parking aid, and LED fog lamps.

Toyota's Entune infotainment organization is workmanlike, but not land of the fine art, and it doesn't scale to offering more utility on the bigger screens of the Premium and Advanced. Entune doesn't back up Apple CarPlay and Android Motorcar. Instead, Toyota is working on a competing, open-source spec called SmartDeviceLink, appear at CES 2022. Ford, Subaru, Lexus, Mazda, and Lincoln are also on lath. (Some other makers may support SDL and CarPlay/Android Auto.)

At 183 inches long, in the middle of compact-auto territory, the Prius Prime number seats four comfortably. There is no middle seat in back.

Prius Prime number: Should You Buy?

The plug-in hybrid market place is small, for now. The summit sellers are the Chevrolet Volt with 16,710 sales through October, the Prius Prime with 16,682, Ford'south aging Fusion Energi midsize sedan at 8,026, and the Ford C-Max Energi compact hatchback with 7,181. In comparison, Toyota reported 10-calendar month sales of the Prius sedan at 55,443.

If yous're comparing the Prius hybrid sedan, good for two miles of electric driving, with the Prius Prime number good for 20-25 miles, we see the Prius Prime number as a meliorate deal–especially for commuters who can fit most of their daily commute inside that range. Falling back to traditional hybrid fashion, it'southward rated at 53 mpg, and between BEV and EV drive, one tank of gas will take you 500-plus miles. With that kind of mpg, information technology'south as expert as any car for long-altitude driving in terms of economy.

The plug-in Chevrolet Volt costs several thousand dollars more, but it also has twice the bombardment range, an EPA-rated 53 miles. The other PHEV worth looking at is the Hyundai Ioniq, which can exist had as a plug-in hybrid with an 8.ix-kWh battery (most the same as Prius Prime), traditional hybrid, or pure EV.

The Prius One, Two, 3, and 4 and Touring refer to the trim lines of the mainstream Toyota Prius. The Prius 3 is closest to the Prius Prime Plus. The Prius C is a smaller hatchback vehicle. The Prius 5 is a Prius station wagon/crossover with a bigger cargo expanse. (In that location is no Prius Prime wagon.) If y'all demand more capacity than that, become for the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid.

Our recommendation: If you're looking at a hybrid, wait at plug-in hybrids, also, especially Volt, Ioniq one time information technology's bachelor in Dec, and Prius Prime. All told and comparably equipped, the Toyota Prius Prime plug-in hybrid is shut to the regular Prius on price, is essentially the same on mileage, and information technology takes you 20-25 miles on battery power, which for many people would be the majority of their daily driving. Toyota has sold some 2 one thousand thousand Priuses; they're mainstream vehicles now. From our perspective, the Prius Prime number plug-in should exist the flagship of the Toyota Prius armada.

Often nosotros recommend the top trim line to get the most, best tech. Here virtually everything you need for safety and driver aid is on the entry-level Prius Prime Plus via Toyota Safety Sense-P except for bullheaded spot detection, which is merely on the Prius Prime number Avant-garde for $vi,000 more. We hope Toyota decouples blind spot detection from Prius Prime Advance and rolls it into TSS-P sooner than later.