2020 Toyota Prius Prime

What began as a small, nondescript little hybrid box in 1997 has grown into a rolling business card for Toyota. The Prius quickly became a rallying point for early adopters of alternative power. It climbed the sales charts for a decade before Toyota split it into four models to leverage its popularity. But a fall from the top relinquished its position as the sole hybrid choice on the market. Though two of the family members—the wagon-like Prius v and compact Prius c—are no longer, what remains is the traditional hybrid and the version with a plug, recently rebadged the Prius Prime.

The 2020 Toyota Prius Prime has a new, more conventional sedan-like styling. It’s equipped with both a gas and electric motor that work together to achieve superior fuel efficiency and a 640-mile range. Unfortunately, its onboard electric motor can only run for 25 miles when fully charged, which is sub-par compared with rivals.

Other PHEV options like the outgoing Chevrolet Volt can go 53 miles on electric power alone, though Chevy is not continuing production after this year. Most Americans drive no more than 40 miles per day, so a plug-in hybrid that covers that figure with a small buffer will work for the majority of car buyers. In that regard, the Prius Prime is a little shy of the mark. However, the hybrid powertrain is rated at an excellent combined city and highway fuel economy rating of 54 mpg. (The Prius Eco model ekes out even more, at 56 combined mpg.) 

The Prius Prime uses a 1.8-liter, 95-horsepower 4-cylinder combustion engine plus two electric motors worth a combined 76 kilowatts, netting a system total of 121 horsepower. That’s no muscle car scenario, but it serves the Prius pretty well. Pretty well, that is, until the car’s loaded with people. Then things get sluggish.  

The 8.8-kilowatt-hour battery pack can recharge in about two hours juicing up from a high-voltage charger. But even with no charge in the battery, the combustion engine alone can travel at least 500 miles, illustrating one big PHEV hybrid advantage over pure electrics: an insurance policy against getting stranded with a flat battery, written by the internal combustion engine on board. 

The Prius Prime offers three trims, which have been shuffled to align more with the other Prius hybrid: LE, XLE and Limited. The XLE and Limited have 11.6-inch vertical touchscreen, and Apple CarPlay and Amazon Alexa (sorry, Android users) is standard across the board, a new add for 2020. The main instrument cluster with a digital speedometer and warning lights is parked in the top center of the dash and not straight ahead of the driver in traditional Prius fashion. 

Meanwhile, the electronic gear lever for the transmission juts out of the lower dash and buttons for the active safety systems’ adjustments are chiefly in the steering wheel itself. That steering wheel sits rather low, by the way, even in its highest position; it could use more range of movement. Other secondary buttons sit to the left of the steering wheel on the dash and are therefore somewhat out of a natural sightline. Previously white interior accents in the Prius Prime are now black and less distracting. 

Significantly, new standard driver assistance and active safety systems—even for the base model—include forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, pedestrian detection, lane-keeping assist and adaptive cruise control. Blind spot monitoring and rear cross traffic alert remain options. The 2020 Prius Prime also now offers seating for five people rather than just four, and two additional USB ports for rear-seat passengers. 

Generally speaking, the Prius drives like a conventional car, which is a good and unsurprising thing. It corners decently, though not like a sports sedan. Hitting the gas pedal hard doesn’t make it go faster, but yields respectable throttle response. From a dead stop, it hits 30 mph in short order, though acceleration starts to wane at higher speeds.

The 2019 Prius Prime earned a Top Safety Pick from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (the 2020 is not vastly different from the 2019). The IIHS results, however, give an “Acceptable” rather than a “Good” rating in a frontal overlap test where 25% of the car’s front end hits the solid barrier at 40 mph, replicating a crash into a telephone pole or large tree. It was rated five out of five stars from the government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Toyota also now backs up the batteries to all its hybrids including the Prius Prime with a new warranty, up from 8 years or 100,000 miles to 10 years or 150,000 miles. This warranty is transferrable to all subsequent owners, and does not die with the first one. Looking at the Prius Prime’s pure-electric range of 25 miles being shy of some other cars in the class like the Chevy Volt’s max of 53 miles, the Honda Clarity’s 47 miles or even the Hyundai Ioniq’s 29 miles, it may be a disappointment.

But there’s still a major upside. Some owners report going for months without having to fuel up, relying primarily on electric operation with the combustion engine kicking in only a faction of the time. This scenario still affords one great benefit and one sure to please Prius fans: rarely visiting a gas station.