2017 Toyota Prius Prime Advanced
Second place: Tortoise and the Hare.
Let’s get something out of the way right up front: The Prius Prime is unattractive. How something so graceless, gawky, and odd emerged from a company as conservative as Toyota is shocking. Its design is so off-putting, it’s almost an anti-car statement. Designers often draw inspiration from ordinary objects, or from architecture, nature, and so on. In Blue Magnetism paint—a metallic teal—the thing appears to have been inspired by a disfigured puffer fish, a turquoise ring you’d find in a New Mexico gas station, and a 1958 Edsel. Perhaps that’s why the wind refuses to touch it. How else can you explain the Prius Prime’s excellent 0.25 drag coefficient?
At least when you’re in it, you can’t see it. Hit the starter button, and the 11.6-inch center screen that looks like a smaller version of what’s in a Tesla Model S lights up and shows a Prius driving around a sphere while speakers plunk a few welcoming piano notes, a tune that contributor John Pearley Huffman described as “Liberace-esque.” Move the now-familiar Prius joystick into D and the Prius, with a full charge and in EV mode, pulls away with just enough poke to keep up with traffic.
Perched on the Prius’s comfortable vinyl seats, we felt an airiness engendered by the hatchback’s expansive windshield and tall side windows that read as a minivan’s or SUV’s panorama more than a car’s. Look in the rearview mirror, and there are two panes of glass in the hatch that make parallel parking and backing up easier. The Volt isn’t particularly difficult to see out of, but vistas abound in the Prius. The interior plastics have a pleasing grain, there’s shiny piano-black trim, and a white panel that surrounds the hybrid-mode buttons and shifter nub breaks up the dark monotony. Sit in the Prius’s back seat, and it feels larger than the Volt’s, although the Prius Prime only has seatbelts for two in the back while the Volt can seat three across. According to EPA measurements, the Prius has a big, nine-cubic-foot advantage in the cargo department, but judging by appearances, it’s only marginally larger than the Volt’s.
Using only the electric motors, the Prime hits 60 mph in 12.2 seconds. Merging onto a moving freeway proves to be a challenge, as it takes 8.2 seconds to go from 50 to 70 mph. When pressed to merge, the Prius Prime comes across as a big golf cart, which isn’t what you want when you’re aiming for a space between 18-wheelers.
It’s not in a C/D editor’s nature to slow down unless the radar detector goes off, but with so little speed to be had, the Prius Prime persuades you to drive it to maximize efficiency. So plan ahead, be gentle on the brakes to fully harvest regenerated electricity, and accelerate calmly. What’s the rush, Fangio?
There are three levels of accelerator sensitivity: power, normal, and eco. It’s best left in normal since power only gives false hope. Drive it as intended, and we found that it will go 22 miles on a full charge. Recharging it on a household 120-volt outlet with 8 amps of current takes about five hours; expect to halve that time on 240 volts.
Hybrid mode can be manually selected to save the battery’s charge for later, but it switches on automatically when the battery runs down or if speeds exceed 84 mph. With both power sources contributing, there’s that additional 30 horsepower to be had. After two acceleration runs using only electric power, subsequent runs caused the engine to kick on between 50 and 60 mph to provide additional boost. Our EV acceleration numbers are from the first two purely electric runs. Acceleration improves when both power sources are humming along in hybrid mode, but this is still a slow car. In hybrid mode, the run to 60 mph takes 10.2 seconds versus the EV mode’s 12.2, and the simulated freeway merge, represented here by our 50-to-70 run, is a still-leisurely 7.0 seconds.
Potential Prius buyers might be willing to ignore the car’s stodgy acceleration. After all, what consumers in this market are looking for is fuel economy, not style, certainly. And, while it can’t quite match the Volt, the Prius Prime delivers reasonably good efficiency, achieving 52 MPGe overall.
Accept the lack of power and driving this hybrid is a laid-back experience. Only 67 decibels of noise come through at 70 mph, the steering is creamy and light, and the suspension is seemingly stuffed with goose down. Toyota equips the Prius Prime with 195/65R-15 Dunlop Enasave 01 A/S tires that were clearly chosen for their low rolling resistance and silent demeanor. Without much rubber on the road, the tires mustered only 0.76 g of roadholding, but the 184-foot stop from 70 mph isn’t far off the Volt’s 180-foot performance. The handling is minivan-like: soft, safe, and dull. On broken pavement, the suspension sends shudders into the structure that sound like a street performer drumming on a plastic bucket.
While the Prius Prime might not please those of us who love driving, Toyota’s reputation for reliability and the Prius Prime’s soothing driving experience will be compelling enough to win over fuel-obsessed buyers. Just don’t drive a Volt after signing the paperwork. Source by Caranddriver website.
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