2016 TOYOTA PRIUS FOUR TOURING

Of course I saw it in the left lane — the carpool lane on Interstate 405 near Toyota’s soon-to-be ex-headquarters in Torrance, California, to boot. I was crawling along in a 2016 Toyota Prius of the lineup-topping Four Touring flavor when a flash of levity entered the frame: a sticker on another car’s rear glass.

“‘Cool Prius!’–Nobody,” it read in all its pithy glory. The car the sticker was plastered on? A Prius Plug-In.

If self-deprecation comes standard with all new Priuses, it doesn’t seem to translate to the realm of public perception. Hybrid vehicles only make up a sliver of the market, but the Prius might as well be the hybrid. Everyone knows it. It’s a taxi fleet favorite. A Google driverless technology platform. A poster child for left-lane squatters. We’ve certainly respected the Prius’ fuel economy and technical advancements for more than 15 years (2001 was the first U.S. model), and these virtues vaulted the second-generation car to a 2004 Motor Trend Car of the Year win.

However, aside from miles-per-gallon tales and cents-per-mile costs, the Prius traditionally has given us little to get excited about. What’s that saying about familiarity and contempt? The power-split planetary gearset is neat (details on what’s improved on a microscopic level will undoubtedly be laid bare in an SAE paper tell-all) but it’s hard to make a case that all aspects of the driving experience are cool. Luckily for us, Toyota wanted to make the new fourth-gen much cooler all around.

Associate editor Christian Seabaugh attended the 2016 Prius press launch at one of the car’s new natural environments: an autocross course. “Prius autocross? Really?” Seabaugh said. “My skepticism was further enhanced by a quick refresher lap of the course in a 2015 Prius. It was everything I remembered: slow, heavy steering, poor body control, bad brake pedal feel. Not fun.”

 And this press event was put on by Toyota. But what did Seabaugh think of the 2016 car? “There’s a night and day difference dynamically between the new car and the last one,” he said. “The new chassis feels so much livelier than the old car’s. It can take the power — what little there is — and really put it down well. Steering is relatively precise, brake pedal feel is very good for a hybrid, and while flat-out acceleration will never be described as fast, it’s certainly good enough. Dare I say it: The new Prius really borders on fun.”

Those familiar with three generations of Priuses might be feeling a pang of the vapors. Testing director Kim Reynolds noticed the same change after putting down a blistering-for-a-Prius 27.8-second figure-eight time. It’s the first time a Prius has dipped into the 27-second range. “Much better,” Reynolds said. “Turns in almost too well, as it reacted more quickly than I expected. Basically a lot of understeer and not much feel. But the steering has more gain and quickness.” Toyota’s investment in the Toyota New Global Architecture with front strut and multilink rear suspension appears to have paid off. The ride is firmer and feels substantially more connected to the road. The TNGA chassis targets a low center of gravity, and you won’t miss it from the driver’s seat. I found myself tiptoeing up curbside lips in fear of scraping the front end, but the Prius never made any characteristic scuffing sounds.

There are all kinds of surprises inside. The floating center console with its handy, mostly hidden storage area underneath has been dismissed from duty, yet the new cabin doesn’t seem as open and roomy as in the last Prius. That’s partly due to the greenhouse size and shape. The 2016’s daylight opening is tighter and more raked, and outward visibility suffers in the over-the-shoulder-peekaboo department. (Passenger volume is in essence a wash at 93.1 cubic feet to last year’s 93.7.) The driving position and front and rear seats are supportive enough in our SofTex-trimmed confines and you can adjust the climate control to concentrate only on the front row. New color and design elements stand out and are pretty out there for the brand. There’s less dour light gray and more piano black and bathtub porcelain white (trims Three and higher feature the white). Some sharp edges (top of the center stack, front-most edge of the center console) dot the interior. But this is safety-focused Toyota, so the situation hasn’t gotten completely out of control. Because the front passenger seat heater switch is obfuscated from the driver’s view, Japan’s biggest automaker believed it necessary to put a clearly labeled status indicator for that side right next to the driver’s seat warmer switch. It’s no surprise the cruise control continues to be managed by a separate stalk, not by steering wheel buttons that could be unintentionally activated.

At 9.7 seconds to 60 mph and 17.4 seconds through the quarter mile at 77.6 mph, the gen-fours are about as quick as the gen-threes. The 2016 car has a lower hybrid system power rating — 121 hp to 2015’s 134 — but I didn’t detect a negative impact. The highlight of the new powertrain — the re-engineered 1.8-liter engine with 40-percent peak thermal efficiency and a new (yet familiar) planetary-type continuously variable automatic, 71-hp/120-lb-ft electric drive motor, and 0.7-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery that’s 6 percent smaller by size and 31 percent lighter by weight than the third-gen nickel-metal hydride piece — is how it substantiates itself in everyday driving conditions. The car stays in full-electric driving more often and more easily than the last model while employing normal gas pedal usage. And when the engine does need to turn on, it isn’t as noisy. The whole car is quieter than before, though road and tire noise is irrefutably present. The brakes exhibit some hybrid grabbiness deeper in the pedal stroke.

But there’s always the fuel economy payoff. An Eco-Diary instrument cluster display stores 32 days’ worth of onboard mpg readouts, letting us gaze into our test car’s semi-checkered past. It’s kind of like perusing the crowd-spurred fuelly.com, except without the user-submitted photos and city/highway driving split guesstimations, and the Eco-Diary entries aren’t segregated by fuel fill-ups. A scatter plot emerges. Motor Trend can account for 15 of the 31 data points; the remaining 16 days were sourced from before we took delivery and with no preceding knowledge of who was at the wheel, what the circumstances were, or how the car was driven. Only drives of meaningful distance are posted (records from 2.2 to 6.2 miles were omitted). The Eco-Diary includes at least three days’ worth of belligerent driving: one to procure handling and acceleration test numbers and two to entertain members of the media during Seabaugh’s autocross adventures.

REFORMED Only the base Toyota Prius Two retains a nickel-metal hydride battery. (This high-voltage component is 10 percent smaller and 2 percent lighter than the 2015 version.) All others convert to lithium-ion. A lithium-ion-fitted Two Eco lightweight special earns 58/53/56 EPA mpg.

2016 Toyota Prius
BASE PRICE	$25,035
PRICE AS TESTED	$30,835
VEHICLE LAYOUT	Front-engine, FWD, 5-pass, 4-door hatchback
ENGINE	1.8L/95-hp/105-lb-ft Atkinson-cycle DOHC 16-valve I-4 plus 71-hp/120-lb-ft electric motor; 121 hp comb
TRANSMISSION	Cont. variable auto
CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST)	3,087 lb (61/39%)
WHEELBASE	106.3 in
LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT	178.7 x 69.3 x 58.1 in
0-60 MPH	9.7 sec
QUARTER MILE	17.4 sec @ 77.6 mph
BRAKING, 60-0 MPH	115 ft
LATERAL ACCELERATION	0.82 g (avg)
MT FIGURE EIGHT	27.8 sec @ 0.61 g (avg)
EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON	54/50/52 mpg
ENERGY CONS, CITY/HWY	62/67 kW-hrs/100 miles
CO2 EMISSIONS, COMB	0.37 lb/mile