2023 Toyota Prius Review: Newly Sexy, Still Not Perfect
The Verdict: Toyota is targeting a new, younger buyer with its faster, sleeker, and sexier Prius, which is revised for 2023, but some of the missing features, interior design, and cheapness could do with it.
Compare the competition: The new Prius’ fuel economy is close to the best in class, but others outperform it in terms of interior quality, technology, comfort, cargo space, and value, meaning the new Prius can rely upon him. look at the brand. Loyalty attracts attention.
Time flies incessantly in the automotive world as it does elsewhere, and this situation raises the burden of the Toyota Prius as a car for anyone who wants to get out of the environment.
and environmental friendliness has been destroyed due to the arrival of competitive hybrids. and especially all-electric cars.
Related: The redesigned 2023 Toyota Prius boosts performance and safety technology
Remember back in 2003, when a group of celebrities avoided arriving at the Oscars in a limo and instead showed up in a Toyota Prius?
From then on, the Prius’ place in the American zeitgeist seemed to be what you drive when you want to show off how green you are – that is, until Tesla offers itself a fully electric car. limit as never before.
Suddenly, using any keyword became a little more interesting. That hasn’t stopped Toyota from selling more than 20 million Priuses worldwide since its launch,
but today is a different story, with other automakers offering gas-guzzling hybrids like the Prius. Most of them feature better interiors,
more space, better technology, and, meanwhile, more style.
There’s also a bunch of electric cars challenging the Prius’ status as the top pick for the eco package; People can buy one now and choose an electric car like the Tesla Model 3 or Model Y, Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Kona EV,
or many other new electric cars that give the Prius some generations. past the day and old.
take a look. Toyota even has its electric car, the first of which is the bZ4X which is currently on the showroom floor, with more models on the way.
Other hybrids offer more space, comfort, and style than the Prius, such as the new 2023 Corolla Cross hybrid SUV.
So what will Toyota do with the Prius? Well, judging by the beautiful car in front of you,
Toyota’s strategy will now be to present the Prius to a new person: a young, attractive consumer who can be interested in Prius for its new pride only for its good looks.
several gases. It’s Toyota’s way of reminding us that hybrids are still around, still important, and still playing a big part in the company’s strategy.
But will the new Prius sexy (a sentence that is an unimaginable oxymoron) be enough to regain the status of the eco-major leader? Or is that not even a goal anymore?
To find out, I drove the new 2023 Prius to an advertising event in Southern California (Cars.com pays for its flights and accommodations when it attends manufacturer-sponsored events).
It’s a hot Prius… Crazy, isn’t it?
No, your eyes do not betray you. Behold, here, the world’s first sexy Toyota Prius.
The 2023 model ditches the impressive scientific performance of the Prius’ past since its introduction to the world in 1997 and replaces it with an unbelievably cool, aggressive stance and stunning looks that turn heads in a way no Prius has ever had.
never done before. And it positively changes them, in a “Wow, that’s cool” way and not an “Oh my God, why did they do that?” kind of way.
How did Toyota do this? The visible change is where the roof rises: this figure has moved back by several centimeters.
Now there is a long wedge shape from the nose to the windshield with a high angle to the top at the back of the first line.
Combine that with a much cleaner, more stylish rear end that’s instantly recognizable as the 2023 Crown sedan’s signature logo, and suddenly,
the Prius goes from being an uninteresting hunk to -go in one of the best cars. Toyota has developed.
It almost seems like it’s from a completely different company.
Premium quality always comes at a price
Alas, you know what has to be given to achieve such a new vision, and what is sacrificed is inner space and outer misery.
Limits, in particular, have decreased; it’s difficult to get in and out of the Prius because of the low windshield and low car, and the back seat is impossible for anyone taller than 5-foot-10.
The 5-foot-11 padded seat found my neck held to the side and my head held high on the head.
You can’t even blame the panoramic roof option on my tester, because no space system eats into the headroom; there is no room as big as before – and there was none of that before.
Cargo space is also smaller than the first-generation Prius — about seven cubic feet less than its Toyota equivalent, with 20.3 cubic feet of space behind the seats.
Those who drive Priuses in trucks or use them as taxis will find some customers averse to this new model; it might be time for the Corolla Cross Hybrid instead.
Front-row seats are welcome; Besides banging your head every time you get into the car, it feels good as soon as you sit down. However, visibility over the heavily raked windshield is a bit tricky due to the tall dashboard and roof pillars. The rear hatch has also been changed – it’s no longer a split-window design to spoil the view behind you, but the resulting single-glass hatch is smaller and doesn’t offer much visibility. In the high-spec Limited trim level, the optional rear-view camera mirror makes this a staple, and for good reason.
The room does not hold a warranty card
As good as the exterior looks, this beauty ends on paper.
The interior is more conventional than previous Priuses, with the gauge cluster now in front of the driver rather than in the middle of the dashboard, but it’s done on all-electric bZ4X models; it is placed on the dashboard where the steering wheel is turned down.
You have to look over the steering wheel to see the gauges, and most of them work well. The sample also represents the actual presentation in the head.
The dashboard has a choice of two screens:
an 8-inch touchscreen for the LE and XLE trims, or a 12.3-inch touchscreen for the trim level (optional on the XLE).
Both run the new Toyota Audio Multimedia system, which works well but still has a lot of real estate on the screen that seems to know what to do.
It’s a very simple system that doesn’t allow many things on the screen at once or has a “home” screen style, but it’s still nice and easy to use.
The internal problem is the quality of things. It’s not exactly bad, but it feels more competitive with models like the latest Kia Niro hybrid. There are few soft touches inside (none in the second row), and everything has a grain and texture that feels cheap.
It’s not worse than the new Prius, but it’s not better than the latest Prius, and that’s a problem when the competition spends money in a rich environment with better technology, display, and handling. The steering wheel, for example, is very ugly to look at and in bad shape to boot.
The seats are upholstered in fabric in the basic version or SoftTex leatherette in the advanced version. There are also different combinations. For example, the upper Limited trim level heated and ventilated seats in front, but the passengers are not able to change.
There was only one zone of automatic climate control in my test car, as a 2022 model, at a time when almost everything with automatic climate control now offers at least two zones for occupant comfort.
There is a panoramic glass roof available, but it does not open.
