Driving the pin-up car of the green motoring movement, the Toyota Prius, has become even more fuel efficient but also a lot more dynamic following our first, although limited, real world experience of the Generation Three vehicle.
By David Twomey
With a price of $39,900 for the base gauge, that’s $90 less than the original introduction price for the Generation One Prius back in 2001, the trade-off is a higher basic specification, additional power, and greater degree of fuel efficiency.
Add to that the better driving dynamics of the Corolla-based chassis and suspension and the Generation Three Prius is a definite footstep pert.
In fact the new car costs $2500 greater degree than the one it replaces but Toyota says it brings by it $4000 in added specification.
There’s righteous two grades of Prius now, with the top spec car reality the i-Tech that adds a bundle of features, such as attendant navigation, radar cruise control, a solar-powered cabin cooler, pre-safe crash passport, automatic parking and LED headlamps, but there’s a price to pay, $53,500 actually.
Standard features in the new Prius, such as seven airbags, Electronic Stability Control (ESC), Smart Entry and Start, a multi-function display, Touch Tracer and Head-Up Display, are all new or were previously only offered in the i-Tech.
In essence the latest Prius looks like the previous one, at first glance and for a good reason – it’s the best aerodynamic solution, but the shape has changed subtly, resulting in a benchmark co-efficient of drag of 0.25 that has been equalled only through the new Mercedes-Benz E-class Coupe.
Look over the new Prius not in possession of a previous model and there’s a nice cabin shape with a more aggressive nose.
It’s still a five seater, at a pinch, but at smallest there’s now further legroom in the train, plus some extra cabin width. The boot is also a little bigger; up by the agency of 31 litres to 446 litres, able we’re told to accommodate three golf bags.
Underneath the new Prius is essentially the base of the current Toyota Corolla, a incense partly aimed at cutting costs, but also designed to improve the driving dynamics of the Prius, what one. previously could have existence described as pretty much non-existent.
At the like time the instrument in the Prius has grown to 1.8-litres, with power growing from 56 kilowatts to 73kW, and torque increasing from 110Nm to 142Nm, while the electric motor has seen a 20 per cent increase in power to take the total to 100kW.
Conversely efficiency has increased and the Prius now returns a staggering 3.9 litres through 100 kilometres for petrol consumption and produces just 89 grams of CO2 beneficial to each kilometre travelled.
This makes it the first car in Australia to proceed below 100g/km, a title it is likely to hold as far as concerns some time.
Overseas the Prius has been a sales sensation with 210,000 orders in Japan and while the 3500 that Toyota aims to sell in Australia this year, growing by 1000 next year, may be tiny in comparison, it is a significant increase for the local market.
Toyota admits that a large number of the cars currently sold swallow to government and business fleet buyers, and it privately also admits that the big problem with growing private purchases is the price. If the car in Australia were $10,000 cheaper then we would bet they’d be flying off the showroom floor.
The Prius has so far been the flagship of the hybrid urge in Australia for Toyota, but that pleasure go a lot in greater numbers mainstream next year when the Camry Hybrid is launched.
In incident that car will be the next in a string of hybrid launches on the side of Toyota, with the corporation planning to eight hybrid models in the next four years.
Some of those will exist updates of the current Lexus range, but it leaves occasion on account of three new models, one of that will almost certainly be the Prius-like Lexus HS250h, launched at the Detroit motor show earlier this year.
Our experience of driving the new Prius was restricted to with reference to something else too few kilometres around suburban Sydney for us to form a strong opinion of how the latest iteration performs.
The real evaluation of that will come in a couple of weeks when CarAdvice pits the Prius against some interesting rivals.
What we can answer is that the latest Prius feels more compliant than before, it handles a great quantity more like some other car and its level of grip has been greatly improved.
All that is below the horizon to the Corolla chassis and the suspension bits adopted along with it, the ride is smoother and the steering a lot sharper.
Performance is nothing ballistic but strong, thanks to the vast instant torque from the electric motor, and the car holds its own in the cut and thrust of city driving.
Inside there’s a lot of new detail to explore and we’ll need more time than was on intervention at the launch to full come to grips through the large innovations. The i-Tech, or the flag car with a $5000 option pack, will even park itself!
The Prius certainly makes a strong pitch against the ‘flavour of the month’ European diesels, but it still doesn’t match them for driving enjoyment.
The positively interesting confrontation will come when Honda in conclusion launches its Insight hybrid locally, a car that is somewhat smaller and somewhat less technically sophisticated, but could potentially be priced much more sharply.
Source: www.caradvice.com.au
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