TOYOTA PRIUS

Surprises galore as Mk5 version of hybrid pioneer joins fleet

- Steve Sutcliffe

I NEVER thought I'd say this, but I’m already a huge fan of the new Toyota Prius that has just joined our fleet.

It looks great, drives miles better than I expected, is way more refined than I thought it might be - and it returns a genuine 65mpg+ in everyday driving. As such, it’s an extremely easy car to like, and a difficult one to find fault with.

Ours is the top-spec Excel model, which comes on 19-inch wheels and has just one option, which is hard to miss because it comes in the form of Mustard Yellow metallic paint that costs an extra £655. This brings the total-as-tested price to £40,545, in return for which you get what is, I believe, one of the smartest, most relevant cars £40k can buy right now.

The powertrain is a plugin hybrid setup, as before, but Toyota has increased the outputs — and therefore the performance — substantially for this latest version. You now get 220bhp from the combined efforts of a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine mated to a 13.6kWh lithium-ion battery with an electric motor and a CVT transmission.