PRIUS REGAINS ITS SPARK(some text hidden)

By Jonathan Crouch

Ten Second Review word count: 53

Toyota's Prius needed to reinvent itself for this new era. It has. It's now a Plug-in Hybrid, but a much more sophisticated one, with a smarter look, longer range and sharper handling. Still want that mid-sized EV? If you're considering that and don't want an SUV, check out one of these as well.

Background word count: 235

As EV sales falter, Hybrid powertrains are elbowing their way back into the sales spotlight. An appropriate time then, for the return of the car that started the Hybrid revolution, the Toyota Prius. First launched in 1997 as 'the car for the 21st century', the Prius went on to find 5.05 million owners over four generations, pioneering the 'Synergy Drive' Hybrid tech that now underpins just about every Toyota you can now buy and forcing rival makers to get serious about electrified engines. By the end of the fourth generation model's production run though, hardly any private UK customers were choosing a Prius; in 2021, just 563 models were sold here (mostly to Uber drivers), compared to nearly 18,000 Toyota's C-HRs. So when the radical new fifth generation Prius model was launched at the 2022 LA Motor Show, the Japanese maker announced that it wouldn't be appearing in UK showrooms. But then came the hiccup in the EV market and a renewal of customer interest in the kind of Plug-in Hybrid powertrain that Toyota only offers in the priciest versions of its C-HR and RAV4 SUVs. Suddenly, that decision to can Prius sales was starting to look somewhat premature. Hence the brand's U-turn on the subject in early 2024 and the decision to sell this MK5 design here after all, though only (for the moment) in PHEV form. Let's take a closer look at it.