Long-term test: Toyota Prius Excel

I have been well and truly uplifted by the latest Toyota Prius. It’s as economical as it is entertaining, and is a real head turner into the bargain, especially in Mustard Yellow. It’s also well made and surprisingly practical – despite being a bit short of space in its rear seats and boot. After 4,000 miles I’m quietly smitten.

Believe what you read in the press and you could be forgiven for thinking the latest Toyota Prius is not very roomy, not all that great to drive, and is not an especially good car, full stop.

But after six months and several thousand miles in this particular bright yellow Excel-spec example, I’d say most of what’s been written about the new Prius – or posted on YouTube – is wrong. Because for real-world appeal, and for real-world people, I reckon it’s as good as any hybrid car gets right now.

I’ve been quietly blown away by how good it is, even if it does have one or two faults, such as a shortage of outright headroom in the back and a boot that looks small beside some rivals.

I’d even go so far as to suggest that, for most people, it is way better to drive than it needs to be. It’s quick enough to hit 60mph in less than seven seconds and also steers, handles, stops, rides and goes far better than you’d expect from a humble Prius.

Used - available now

2020 Toyota

Prius

25,936 milesAutomaticPetrol1.8L

2026 Toyota

Prius

6,451 milesAutomaticPetrol2.0L

2026 Toyota

Prius

3,730 milesAutomaticPetrol2.0L

2026 Toyota

Prius

6,219 milesAutomaticPetrol2.0L

Even for a self-confessed enthusiast like me, it is a surprisingly sharp and engaging car to drive. Okay, the drivetrain itself – though deeply impressive in its economy – might lack a bit of sparkle subjectively, but it does the job it’s been designed to do with a calm efficiency. In this day and age, with roads as congested and camera-strewn as ours, I’d say that makes it more than good enough.

And that’s before you even mention how brilliant the car’s ride quality is, how well made it is inside, how comfortable the front seats are on long journeys – or the fact that it’s capable of returning a genuine 80mpg+ on long journeys and has a real-world electric range of almost 50 miles.

In the everyday grind of life these are the things that matter most in a Prius – far more than any absence of pizazz from the 2.0-litre engine and CVT transmission, or any slight lack of headroom in the back for seriously tall passengers. Unless you’re a taxi driver, in which case maybe think again.

I came away from six months with the Prius thinking this is surely the kind of car that most of us should be driving right now, rather than an EV that’s awkward or expensive to charge. I live in a city, so did most of my miles in EV mode, switching with the press of one button to hybrid-auto mode whenever I got clear of the city and began driving at anything more than about 45mph. The best I then saw was 87.8mpg on a run to Twickenham and back, which is incredible. When fuel prices went berserk a month or two back, it still cost only £35 to fill the tank and put another 400+ miles of range in the car.

And despite the car’s over-zealous ADAS systems, most of which I’d disengage the moment I climbed inside, I really did enjoy driving and living with this latest Prius – to a point where I am very sorry indeed to see it go. I could, and am seriously now thinking about, having one as my personal daily. That’s how impressed I was with it overall.

Faults? Because of the hybrid gubbins beneath it, the boot is shallower than I’d like, although I still managed to squeeze four big wheels and tyres into it, so it’s not that bad.

The main instrument display still seems too far away from behind the wheel, and the details it contains are too small to drink in at a glance. I never got fully comfortable with this. I also think the gearlever is counter-intuitive when switching between drive modes, especially from max regen mode (B, which is what I used mostly in town) to reverse, although I did get used to it eventually.

Beyond this, I thought the Prius was just excellent at doing what it is supposed to do best. Its fitness for purpose rating is sky high – and in the end that’s surely what you want from a car: to do what it is meant to do, well.

The fact that it also looks great, rides beautifully, steers crisply and is miles better to drive than you’d imagine are all bonus aspects in the end. But they’re also what make the Prius the excellent car it undoubtedly is. Without them it would be just another hybrid, and the latest Prius is way more than that.

Despite the Prius’ sloping roofline, it has proved surprisingly accommodating to rear passengers

It’s been said that the biggest problem with the new Toyota Prius is its rear headroom. But I beg to differ. I’m five foot 10 and a bit, and as you can see, there’s plenty of space between the top of my small brain and the roof. I’ve even had passengers of six foot two in the back and neither complained, so if you’re worried about rear headroom and fancy the handsome 80mpg+ Prius, chalk that concern off the list, because I have.

With fuel prices still high, the Prius’ efficiency and quality make it feel like the answer to our problems

The more miles I do in the Toyota Prius, the more convinced I become that it is the answer to most of our problems right now. It’s good to drive, looks interesting, is spacious and extremely well made, and – on average over 2,000 miles – it’s returning more than 73mpg. My new best so far is 87.9mpg. That’s pretty significant when unleaded costs £1.60 a litre…

Our PHEV’s safety tech is nagging a little too often – it’s time to reach for the ‘off’ switch

Although I wouldn’t yet say the honeymoon period is over, a couple of things about the Prius have started to irritate me of late, by far the most irksome of which is its over-zealous ADAS package.

Most of the features that help keep it on the road, and me out of harm’s way, work pretty well to be fair. And some of them are excellent, such as the rear cross traffic alert system that works a treat when you’re manoeuvring in tight spaces. Even the lane departure system – which in itself is too aggressive for me – is easy enough to switch off. Unlike the speed limit warning chimes, which are there every time you start driving.

Most of the ADAS features I put up with, and shut up about, because, mostly, they are well enough integrated and don’t feel too intrusive from day to day. What I absolutely caot be doing with, though, is the car’s Rear Vehicle Approaching Indication (RVAI) system.

As far as I can deduce, this particular element of the ADAS package is unique to the UK market, because if you ask any AI search engine what it is and how to switch it off, they can’t identify it. Not until you add ‘on a UK-market Prius’ into the search, at which point it will tell you all about RVAI.

The defined purpose is apparently to “help monitor rear traffic to prevent tailgating incidents”. It does this by sensing vehicles that are approaching from the rear, then alerting the driver with a visual warning within the instrument display “alerting the driver to check their mirrors for safer lane changes and to prevent rear-end collisions”.

The first time I experienced RVAI was on the M23 when a bloke in a quick Audi came howling up behind me, quite clearly in a bit of a rush. I’d spotted him coming from a long way back but had nowhere to go; the M23 was busy that day and there was a train of cars both in front and to the side of me.

So the last thing I needed was a great big message within the instrument display warning me there was a “rear vehicle approaching”. All the message did was add (considerably) to both the stress and anger I was already feeling about being tailgated.

On reflection, however, it was the shock of the warning itself that was most perplexing – because my natural reaction on seeing it was firstly to come off the accelerator, and then brake. Which is surely what most folks will do – especially on a motorway – when they see a new, visually dramatic warning message light up half the dashboard. As such, I’d say RVAI is an entirely counter-intuitive safety feature, one that may well cause more accidents than it prevents.

Fortunately, and after much investigation, I’ve worked out how to deactivate it. Permanently. So it now stays off all the time, and I continue to be quietly blown away by how excellent the rest of this car is. I love how easy it is just to climb into and go, and the ride quality on our rubbish town roads is also a constant source of delight.

As is the 75mpg+ fuel economy, the light directness of the steering, the inherent smoothness of the superb hybrid powertrain, the general quality of the interior and its numerous toys, and most of all the fine comfort of its seats and the fundamental correctness of its driving position.

In short, I just really like climbing into the Prius and going for a drive in it, anywhere. I honestly wasn’t expecting that kind of satisfaction from a car like this – so long as the RVAI system is switched well and truly off.

Excellent efficiency and a usable electric-only range make the Prius a convincing antidote to ever-rising fuel bills

It’s easy to become quietly obsessed with your energy consumption when you’re a Toyota Prius driver. Journeys become missions to see how little fuel and/or electricity you can use, and you can easily forget how good the rest of the car is as a consequence. My personal best so far is 82.7mpg on a trip from Hove in East Sussex to Twickenham, south-west London, and back – a figure that I find frankly astonishing.

And since the price of fuel has started to sky-rocket, I mostly use EV mode to get about town, in which the Prius will do 40-45 miles for less than a fiver at my nearest public charging point. As a combination, and in this day and age, I’m finding the Prius more relevant – and just more excellent to live with – as each mile passes beneath its 19-inch wheels. It is, as they say, mustard.

Surprises galore as Mk5 version of hybrid pioneer joins fleet

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m already a huge fan of the new Toyota Prius that has just joined our fleet. It looks great, drives miles better than I expected, is way more refined than I thought it might be – and it returns a genuine 65mpg+ in everyday driving. As such, it’s an extremely easy car to like, and a difficult one to find fault with.

Ours is the top-spec Excel model, which comes on 19-inch wheels and has just one option, which is hard to miss because it comes in the form of Mustard Yellow metallic paint that costs an extra £655. This brings the total-as-tested price to £40,545, in return for which you get what is, I believe, one of the smartest, most relevant cars £40k can buy right now.

The powertrain is a plug-in hybrid set-up, as before, but Toyota has increased the outputs – and therefore the performance – substantially for this latest version. You now get 220bhp from the combined efforts of a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine mated to a 13.6kWh lithium-ion battery with an electric motor and a CVT transmission.

That’s enough to propel the 1,610kg Prius to 62mph in a claimed 6.8 seconds and to a top speed of 110mph, with official CO2 emissions of just 17g/km. At my test average (so far) of 68.3mpg, that gives a theoretical range of over 600 miles from the 40-litre fuel tank, while in EV mode the claimed range is 53 miles. In reality, that figure is around 40 miles, while the on-board computer suggests a fill is required after not much beyond 450 miles because it doesn’t want to let you get anywhere near ruing out.

Even so, 500 miles or so is pretty tidy when the tank costs little more than £30 to fill at non-motorway petrol stations. To top up with electricity takes around five hours and costs me £6 at my nearest public charging point. The Prius doesn’t offer rapid charging, so it needs an overnight stop ideally. Which is fine if there’s a charge point on your driveway or nearby, not so fine if not.

The elements that have surprised and delighted me most so far – apart from the incredible fuel consumption, which is this car’s USP – are the ride and the quality of the cabin. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t expect the damping to be anything like as good as it is. It’s proved to be a super-refined car to drive on the increasingly poor road surfaces of Brighton and Hove, and it’s almost eerily calm and quiet on the motorway.

As for the cabin, I’m similarly amazed by how well made and high in quality the Prius feels. Equivalent-priced cars from VW, Ford and even Mercedes do not seem as top end as this. In many ways the Prius feels like a Lexus, with great seats, a lovely precision to all of its controls, plus a high level of equipment on offer, all of which comes as standard.

I’m learning to like the small instrument display, but suspect I will always wish it was a bit bigger, and a bit nearer. The 12.3-inch main central touchscreen is just fine, on the other hand, and appears to offer all the functionality you could want from a vehicle that contains this much technology. I haven’t yet been bamboozled by what’s on offer, which is a result considering how complex the Toyota’s features are.

Bottom line, I’m quietly blown away by how good this latest Prius is – not just as a car to drive, but as a machine to simply climb into, understand, and use each day. It appears to offer a unique combination of technology, economy, ecological awareness and good old-fashioned driver appeal, albeit in a contemporary kind of way. In short, I love it to bits so am struggling to find serious fault with anything. So far...

*Insurance quote for a 42-year-old in Banbury, Oxon, with three points.

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Steve Sutcliffe has been a car journalist for over 30 years, and is currently a contributing editor to Auto Express and its sister magazine evo.

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