The Toyota Prius is the best hybrid on sale. It’s far more efficient than other hybrids, while offering plenty of room for four adults, ample cargo space and a responsive, refined driving experience. The real question, though, is whether you should get the plug-in hybrid version.
I spent a week with one to find out. And while I truly believe the Prius Plug-In Hybrid (PHEV) is one of the best plug-in hybrids ever, I still think the regular Prius is the right choice for most shoppers.
Read below to see why.
What Is It?
The Toyota Prius popularized hybrid vehicles in the United States, and has been a fixture of our roads since 2012. The Prius Plug-In launched in 2012 as the first plug-in version. While the Prius already offered industry-leading efficiency, the plug-in version allowed drivers to go for up to 11 miles on electric power alone. But with such limited electric-only driving range, it remained a rare option. It offered poor driving range and the same ugly design as other Prii at the time, but for more money.
The original Prius PHEV was ugly, slow and boring to drive, with only 11 miles of range. The new one has solved all of those issues.
Photo by: Toyota
Yet Toyota never gave up. The second generation plug-in Prius became the Prius Prime, with the new name signaling Toyota’s renewed interest in the formula. But it wasn’t until this third attempt launched that people really took notice.
The new Prius offers a far more striking design and a much sharper driving experience than previous generations. Now, in PHEV guise, it gets 220 horsepower and up to 44 miles of electric driving range. Zero to 60 mph happens in 6.4 seconds (per Motortrend), and the Environmental Protection Agency says the Prius PHEV will do 52 miles per gallon combined when the battery is dead.
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Source: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
For $34,445 for the base model, that’s a hell of a deal.
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Base Price
$34,445
EV Range
Up to 44 miles
Efficiency
52 mpg combined
Engine
2.0-liter four-cylinder
Output
220 horsepower
Battery
13.6-kWh lithium-ion
Drive Type
Front-wheel drive
What’s Good?
The value is hard to argue with. For $35,000, you get a modern, attractive car with seating for five, a generous cargo area and better fuel efficiency than nearly anything else on the market (the regular Prius is the only car that beats it). The Prius PHEV also comes standard with a ton of equipment, including all of the active safety tech you need. Luxuries like cooled seats, a JBL stereo, synthetic leather and a surround-view camera system are all available as extras.
In my real-world driving, I found the Prius to be whisper-quiet and engaging to drive. The steering is far improved over previous generations, and while I’d still prefer driving a Honda Civic Hybrid or Accord Hybrid on a twisty road, the Prius is among the most responsive and sporty mainstream hybrids ever built.
Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
I also observed great efficiency during my test, though my sporadic level 1 charging stopped me from doing a full electric range test. Still, mid-50 mpgs and around 40 miles of EV range seems more than achievable. Since it’s a PHEV, too, you won’t have to do any special planning for road trips.
The bigger, 161-hp electric motor in the PHEV version is also great. It gives the Prius the instantaneous shove of a pure EV at low speeds. At highway pace, you’ll have to wait for the gas engine to spin up for any passing power, but I never struggled for speed. Between the seamlessness of the powertrain and the perfect blending of the brake pedal, any hybrid weirdness has been ironed out. The Prius PHEV feels like a normal, but fast, daily driver.
Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
It’s also plenty practical. The PHEV version sacrifices some cargo space—20.3 cubic feet of cargo with all seats in place, as compared to 23.8 cubes for the standard model—but with the hatch-back design and folding rear seats, this thing can easily swallow bikes, coolers, surf boards or other long and wide cargo. Just don’t get your hopes up about hauling tall objects: The pinched roof makes this a bit tighter than a crossover.
What Isn’t?
There’s little wrong with the Prius. I happen to hate the clutter of buttons on the steering wheel, and in general I think the ergonomics are weird. Make sure you sit in one and play around with the controls before committing. Similarly, the awkward shape of the dash and the bizarre angles of the thing make it hard to find a driving position that offers the right mix of reachability, visibility and comfort.
The Prius’ odd-shaped cabin has some ergonomic quirks. Make sure you can find a comfortable seating position that still gives you good visibility. For some, this may end up being a deal-breaker.
Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
Speaking of visibility, the Prius follows Toyota’s infuriating trend of fitting driver-monitoring systems that are engaged even when you aren’t using driver-assistance features like lane-centering. If the steering wheel-mounted sensor can’t see your face—even while cruising around your neighborhood—it’s going to constantly tell you that the sensor is blocked.
I also found most of the driver-assistance tech in the Prius to be a step behind the industry leaders. The Prius also comes with Toyota’s “proactive driving assist,” which will use the car’s sensors to automatically adapt the car’s behavior to the driving situation. If you see a curve coming up or you’re bearing down on another car and let off the gas, for instance, the car will slow down more aggressively than if there’s no one ahead of you.
This is the personal opinion of Mack Hogan, who is not a lawyer: This feature should be illegal.
Cramming 10 largely flat buttons onto the right half of the steering wheel is an ergonomic disaster.
Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
In general, while what the car does when you lift off can be adjustable, it absolutely must be predictable. I can switch my car between one-pedal and normal driving modes, but it’s a choice I make knowing how the car will behave in all situations. With PDA enabled, however, when I let off the throttle, the car decides based on what I’m seeing. That means a bit of uncertainty at the best, and a safety concern at worst if the car behaves in a way you can’t predict. It’s doubly bad because, anecdotally, many consumers are not aware of the active safety features fitted to their cars. Because PDA is so esoteric, I could see an oblivious driver having it on for years and just not knowing why the car occasionally slows aggressively on lift-off.
Luckily this system—and most of them—can be disabled. So it’s absolutely not a dealbreaker, but something I think Toyota needs to work on.
Why I’d Still Buy The Regular Prius
The Prius may not have many flaws, but I still didn’t like it as much as I expected to. That’s for a simple reason: The last Prius I drove was a standard model. I expected the bigger battery and extra oomph to make everything better. But in reality, I think it spoils my favorite thing about the Prius: It’s seamless.
Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
The uphill battle of this gig is that I’m always speaking to buyers who frankly don’t want to hear it. The average American consumer probably couldn’t tell you what kind of engine is in their car—”a vee-four” doesn’t count. Almost nobody has a route-planning app on their phone, or wants to learn how to use one. Trying to coach them through living with an EV can be exhausting; most people just want to get in and drive to their destination without a second thought. They’ve never done it in an EV, and that scares them.
The Prius is the antidote. You buy one at the dealership, you use it like a regular car, your running costs are half what they used to be, and it lasts even longer. That’s the mission. The standard Prius fulfills it without further work from you.
The PHEV promises more, meanwhile, but also asks for more. It costs $5,000 more to start and, when the tax credit disappears at the end of the month, even lessees will be paying more. It gives up 3 cubic feet of cargo and hauls an extra 364 pounds around. It is not available with all-wheel drive, either, while the standard Prius is. It gets “just” 52 mpg combined, rather than 57 mpg on the regular one.
Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
Most importantly, the PHEV gives you more to manage. There are buttons that allow you to use up all of the electrons immediately, or to hold the charge for later. There’s a gas cap and a charging port. There’s another battery indicator to keep an eye on, another charger to carry, another gadget to plug in at the end of the day.
For what? More efficiency, of course. That is a noble goal. But the Prius is already getting nearly 60 mpg. It’s so good it’s silly. Commuting on electric power alone would be cheaper, but you’d have to do quite a complicated calculation to find out how quickly you’d make up the $5,000 difference. Remember to factor in that you’re getting worse MPG when the battery is dead.
You may come out ahead. But even if you do, you’ll run smack into the classic PHEV issue. If you have a cheap place to charge at home, and you’re willing to plug in every night, why wouldn’t you get an EV? You’d have to charge less often with the bigger battery, and you won’t have all of the compromises and maintenance that come with an internal-combustion vehicle. I just don’t think PHEVs are the right solution for most people.
Conclusion
I know, I know, I can hear you shouting “road trips” at your screen. PHEV proponents argue they are the best of both worlds, giving you emissions-free commuting and planning-free road trips.
This idea is based on two misconceptions: One, that EVs cannot handle road trips, and two, that road trips are an integral part of all of our daily lives. Let’s tackle the second first: If you are seriously debating the merits of a PHEV vs an EV, ask yourself honestly how many times in the last 24 months you have driven over 500 miles. If you’re not doing it more than four or five times a year, you have nothing to worry about. An EV may cost you an hour of time once a year, but it will save you a hundred visits to the gas station in day-to-day life.
Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
That puts the Prius PHEV in a weird place for me. I think it is the best PHEV you can buy, and it’s the only one I’d seriously consider. Yet fundamentally, it has the same problem: Those with home or work charging are better served by EVs, and those without charging at home or work should probably stick with a conventional hybrid.
PHEVs are for the awkward folks in the middle, those who have home or work charging, but who still road trip so frequently that they can’t make an EV work right now. To those people, I say go right ahead, snag yourself a Prius PHEV. It’ll be the best and probably last gas car you’ll ever buy.
Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com.
