The new Prius might look similar to the outgoing version, still distinctive with its five-door coupe side profile and steeply raked front and rear sections, but with new chunky moulded bumpers front and rear, a wind cheating front nose, blue tinted headlight surrounds and Toyota badge, huge rear vertical clear tail lights and a new treatment of the twin, upper and lower, rear window treatment for the tailgate it looks more real-world and acceptable. At 4,460mm in length this is a significantly sized car and a definite move up market into the family and business user sectors.
Although the size, specification and performance have increased, prices have changed very little and in two cases stay the same. Prices start from £18,390 for the T3 version and rise to £20,010 for the T4 and to £21,230 for the T Spirit. Expensive but the residual values are high so these offset the more expensive initial purchase price.Economy and performance and of course the high retail price is also offset by free road tax and more miles per gallon for private buyers and the lowest rates of Benefit-in-Kind tax for company car drivers and 100 per cent write down allowance for company Corporation Tax.
The new Prius uses the latest Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive system with 90 per cent of the hybrid drive components redesigned to create a lighter, more compact system with a focus on delivering more power, better cold weather operation, further improvements in real-life fuel efficiency and unprecedented reductions in CO2 emissions. Total system power output has been increased by 24 per cent, from 112 to 134bhp. Performance matches a conventional 2.0-litre family car, with seamless acceleration from zero to 62mph in 10.4 seconds, half a second quicker than previous generation Prius. Top speed is 112mph.
At the same time, overall fuel economy has been improved by 10 per cent. Adopting a larger, 1.8-litre engine in place of the 1.5-litre unit reduces rpm in high speed driving to improve long-haul cruising fuel efficiency by about 10 per cent. In standard driving mode the new Prius T3 returns 72.4mpg in the European homologation combined cycle. The full hybrid Prius is the only family car to combine the fuel consumption levels of a small city car with a cruising range of almost 715 miles, which is 93 miles more than the previous model, in spite of having the same size fuel tank.
New Prius meets Euro 5 emissions standards and is expected to meet the Euro 6 requirements, too. Its CO2 emissions from 89g/km are the best-on-the-market, a figure unmatched by any other family car.
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