Toyota Prius Drags V8 Dodge Charger Pursuit and Wins, Of Course There's a Catch!

The reason is simple – it concerns the power of sharing responsibility. While the offender should have the ability not to share the responsibility of their deeds with others, the police officers have the power to share the burden of pursuit with other patrol vehicles, helicopters, and the lot. And it's all because of a simple invention – the radio, which is faster than any vehicle ever invented.

However, if you take all the complexity of law enforcement out of the equation and only bring one 'cop car' to a skirmish – just for fun – things might change, right? Here, let us give you an example. The good folks over at The Fast Lane Car channel on YouTube have brought an electrified family liftback to brawl with a retired V8 police vehicle, and the results are pretty surprising, frankly.

For their series titled "Are you faster than a cop car?" which is due to their recent acquisition of a retired 2019 Dodge Charger pursuit vehicle, they have brought the 220-hp Toyota Prius Prime in an unprepped location for some traditional drag and roll racing. The technical specifications are usually self-explanatory for betting on a winner - the legendary Hemi V8 and some 370 horsepower, plus AWD, stand on the side of the Dodge.

Meanwhile, the Prius Prime has to contend with 220 horsepower and front-wheel drive. But it's also probably much lighter than the big muscle sedan, even with all the PHEV tricks and treats. Plus, the elevation – they're around a mile high from sea level – also plays a vital role in this drag-and-roll racing equation. So, perhaps you might want to hold off your bets on the Mopar's obvious chances of winning everything.

As it turns out, the only race it almost won was the head-to-head dig from a standstill. Thanks to AWD and a better start off the line, the Charger crossed the finish line first. Alas, disaster struck when they read the results from their time-tracking GPS gizmos: the Dodge crossed the quarter-mile mark in 16.17s, and the Prius Prime did it in 16.13s!

From then on, it was all downhill for the pursuit vehicle – the roll race was unequivocally won by the Prius with a healthy margin, and even the braking test was passed with flying colors by the plug-in Toyota. However, there's a catch, as always – aside from the fact that our eyes showed the Dodge won the drag race. That would be the fact that the TFL host doesn't recommend the top-of-the-line Prius Prime – it costs over $39k as a 2024 XSE Premium instead of $32,675 when choosing the base SE version.

A quick comparison of the three grades shows why you should save the bucks: the entry-level Prius Prime gets better EV range and mileage ratings (52/127 versus 48/114 MPG/MPGe) at the expense of a few luxury items. Also, please drive responsibly and obey all traffic laws (along with common sense), and also don't try this at home – these peeps are doing these funny challenges in locations that are not open to public driving.