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. 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. The Volt isn’t particularly difficult to see out of, but vistas abound in the Prius. Look in the rearview mirror, and there are two panes of glass in the hatch that make parallel parking and backing up easier.
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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. But its interior is roomy, airy, and well wrought. Though the tortoise in this test, it looks like something you’d find lurking in the Mariana Trench.
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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. How else can you explain the Prius Prime’s excellent 0.25 drag coefficient?Īt least when you’re in it, you can’t see it. Perhaps that’s why the wind refuses to touch it. 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. Designers often draw inspiration from ordinary objects, or from architecture, nature, and so on. Its design is so off-putting, it’s almost an anti-car statement. How something so graceless, gawky, and odd emerged from a company as conservative as Toyota is shocking. Let’s get something out of the way right up front: The Prius Prime is unattractive. One emerged as a clear winner, both as something we’d like to drive and as an EV stopgap. To help us dissect these differences and to see whose plug-in works better, we drove them together in stop-and-go Los Angeles traffic, on freeway slogs, and even into the canyons bordering the city. Unlike the Volt, though, the Prius Prime makes more power in hybrid mode than in EV mode, or 121 combined horsepower.Īlthough these plug-in hybrids are conceptually similar, the cars wrapped around the technology are vastly different. As in the Chevy, Toyota leaves some battery capacity in reserve to allow the electric motors to contribute to acceleration and support the gasoline engine. When the juice stops flowing in the Prius Prime, a 1.8-liter Atkinson-cycle four with 95 horsepower makes its entrance. That’s a far more useful number than the old Prius Plug-In’s 51-hp electric-only effort.
The lithium-ion battery pack lives under the cargo area and powers the two electric motor/generators inside the transaxle, which can combine for 68 kW of output, or 91 horsepower. Toyota doubled the battery capacity to 8.8 kWh, which more than doubles the range to 25 miles. Toyota’s second-gen plug-in Prius (rechristened the Prius Prime) follows the Volt’s tack. By leaving some electricity in reserve, the electric motors can add to the four-cylinder’s 101 horses to ensure that the Volt maintains the same 149 horsepower no matter the mode. Even when the Volt switches to hybrid mode, the battery isn’t completely depleted. This naturally aspirated engine runs in the Atkinson cycle for efficiency’s sake and is lighter than the iron-block 1.4-liter it replaces. When the battery reaches a predetermined low state in the Volt, the new aluminum-block 1.5-liter four with 101 horsepower starts up. While the combined gas and electric power output is unchanged from the previous Volt, GM’s redesign of the motors and the gearbox increases efficiency and helps the new car shed 100 pounds. Inside the transaxle are two motor/generators. Chevrolet’s Volt now has a larger, 18.4-kWh battery that weighs 21 pounds less than its predecessor’s, uses fewer cells, and delivers more than 40 miles of EV range. Chevy’s and Toyota’s plug-ins are now entering their second generation, and both offer greater electric-only range and improved performance.
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