Toyota Prius T-Spirit Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Toyota Prius T Spirit
Prices: £21,210 – on the road
Insurance Group: 8E
Emissions: 89g/km
Performance: 0-60mph 10.5s / top speed 112mph
Fuel Consumption: (combined) 72.4mpg
Safety: Twin front, side, front & rear curtain airbags / ABS with EBD
Dimensions: length/width/height 4460/1745/1490mm

SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE?

Our Rating: 7.6 / 10

Can Toyota’s futuristic Prius hybrid fill the conventional family car role in top spec T-Spirit guise? Steve Walker finds out.

Toyota isn’t always seen as the most dynamic or exciting of car manufacturers. Its products revel in a certain no-frills efficiency, underpinned by the excellence of its engineering and the highest manufacturing standards. That’s all great but sometimes a gimmick or two can go a long way, which is what makes the Prius such an important car for Toyota. With its groundbreaking hybrid powertrain, celebrity endorsements and futuristic looks, it’s a Toyota people can get a handle on and get excited about. The latest model is tasked with extending its appeal out of the green niche market and into the mainstream. We tried a top spec T-Spirit model to assess its chances.

Sometime back in the 1980s Toyota decided that petrol/electric hybrid cars might be important in the future. It undertook to become a world leader in hybrid powertrain technology, then it pinned back its ears and went for it. Whatever you think about hybrid technology in cars, its long term viability and environmental benefits, Toyota must surely be congratulated for having the courage of its convictions. While other manufacturers lowered tentative toes into the water, the Japanese marque was setting a new world record for the individual medley. This is the third generation Prius and it was unveiled at a time when only one other manufacturer had brought a hybrid to market.

The more you read about the Toyota Prius, the more you appreciate how high tech it is. This is a cutting-edge car in any number of respects but if you forget the thinking behind it and the complexity of its running gear, the opposite impression takes hold. From a driver’s perspective it’s incredibly simple. You can forget about keys, ignitions, clutches and gears. Get in, hit the power button, prod the jewelled joystick of a gear lever into drive and you’re off. It happens in near silent electric mode at first but with the petrol engine joining in when required. In some respects, it feels like the future and for motorists looking for that low level of involvement, it’s great. Delve a little deeper, though, and impressions are more mixed.

The petrol engine in this Prius is a 98bhp 1.8 which can generate up to 134bhp with its electric assistant going at full chat. It makes for lively performance on the road and if you did sprint from 0-60mph (hardly the done thing in a Prius), you could get there in 10.5s. The steering is well weighted but inert and the Prius feels quite a lump if you try to drive swiftly on a twisty road but again, that isn’t really the point. On the motorway, there’s a lot of wind and road noise which spoils the calming effect of the beautifully hushed drive system. Visibility is a further bugbear as the split rear screen hinders the view out the back and much of the bonnet is out of sight from the driver’s seat. Thankfully, the T Spirit model has a full array of parking assist features. The manoeuvring issue aside, the Prius is in its element around town where the serene and noiseless progress puts you in a good frame of mind to cope with the inevitable traffic chaos.

By now, you should have heard of hybrid cars and be aware that they use a combination of an internal combustion engine and electric motors to get moving. The Prius is a ‘series’ or ‘parallel’ Hybrid which gives it the flexibility to run exclusively on electric or petrol power or on any combination of the two. As you might imagine, there’s a huge amount of technology at work in the car, making this possible and maximising efficiency but to succeed, the Prius needs to integrate that technology into a user-friendly package. It does a decent job. At 4,460mm long and 1,745mm wide, this Prius is a large vehicle. Rear legroom is good but the swooping roofline means anyone over six feet tall will struggle for headroom. The battery pack is located under the boot floor and this means that the luggage space available in is quite shallow but there’s plenty of length and a 445-litre capacity is far from stingy.

The cabin itself is standard Toyota stuff, very well built but lacking a little sparkle on the design side. At least t