Toyota is on a roll, as its outgoing CEO and Chairman Akio Toyoda just added another “Executive of the Year” accolade under his belt and is passing the baton to his appointed successor, Koji Sato, with great perspectives.
Sure, in the United States, the company still needs to rebound from the abysmal sales of last year, and the first quarter of 2023 was not in the clear just yet. But its crossovers, SUVs, and trucks are doing great – it’s just the passenger cars that need a jolt nowadays. Speaking of electrifying North American deliveries, Toyota has finally spilled all the MSRP beans on its Prius ‘Hybrid Reborn’ generation, the fifth by its name.
Sure, the 2023 Prius has been on sale for some time, from a starting MSRP of $27,450, so now we are actually talking about its more developed plug-in hybrid twin, the 2023 Prius Prime. Without further ado, the five-door PHEV liftback kicks off at exactly $32,350. Alas, that is not the purchase price, as one still needs to add a ‘Dealer Processing and Handling’ fee of $1,095, and Toyota notes that prices are subject to change. And we all know what that means in this climate – hikes, and surges, of course.
So, you better grab them while they are set at these quotations. The base price is for the Prius Prime SE, followed by the $35,600 XSE, and the XSE Premium, which is no less than $39,170. That probably hurts some fans’ pockets even when only thinking about the acquisition, but the times are hard these days. Now, let us see what Toyota has on offer for these quotations. And we had better start with the good news.
The latter includes a 76% surge (from 25 miles/40 km) in the EV-only range, with the manufacturer (not the EPA, though) estimating the figure at up to 44 miles (almost 71 km) on a single charge of its new 13.6 kWh battery. The latter can be recharged from any household socket, and it will take 11 hours to sip up all the electrons on 120V or around four hours when using a Level 2 charger. Built on the TNGA-C platform, the Prius Prime has a 0.27 Cd (drag coefficient) and packs the company’s fifth-generation hybrid system.
It combines a fairly large 2.0-liter gas engine with an electric generator and electric motor, with its new output rating jumping 100 ponies over the previous generation to 220 hp. The torque has also soared by 32% from 105 to 139 lb-ft (142 to 188 Nm) and now the zero to 60 mph (96 kph) sprint time has gone down by 35% to 6.6 seconds. Of course, since it is a hybrid, another important rating is the combined efficiency, which stands at 52 mpg (4.52 l/100 km). Cool, right?
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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