Featured "Toyota Delivers a Prius in Corolla Clothing"

I debadged both of my Primes.

I test drove the Hybrid Corolla. It was good, but only offered in the base trim which is missing some features I like. Prime was about $6k cheaper after incentives, had more standard features, and gets 2X+ the mileage. So the Corolla didn’t make a lot of sense in my case.

 

A wagon does not stick out as much as a Kammback.
Without polarizing styling, the Prius could have blended in with the Civics and other hatchbacks now on the road.

 

Queue the Jack Sparrow jokes...

 

Just received my Corolla today. I can't show much of the exterior because of the company lettering and stickers but it looks great to me.
The interior is a change from a lot of what Toyota offered in Europe lately. The seats are great.
I did notice one downside and that is the resolution of the backup camera, compared to the camera in our Ford C-Max (2016) it looks like an early 320x200 webcam which handles bright sunlight poorly. I don't know if the Prius uses the same terrible camera?

 

Wagon? [estate/station sedan]

 

Yes, it is the wagon.

 

Thanks for the pictures @meeder. It's nice to see coolant temperature display on the dash. The tachometer seems a bit of a waste-of-space (maybe just my opinion), and could be better utilized for hybrid displays. Speaking of which:

Is there a Hybrid System Indicator on the dash? For reference:

Third Gen Prius:



Fourth Gen Prius:

 

The US version has one, but not as elaborate as the Gen 4 Prius. Speedo can be switched between analog look (shown), and digital (just the mph number).

 

Hybrid indicator can be displayed in the center and is displayed in the HUD.

 

I think that the tachometer is superfluous as well. The old Auris hybrid had a analogue hybrid indicator in its place. For some reason Toyota wants to make the hybrid to look as much as a normal ICE car. If you get the 2.0 high power hybrid (180bhp) you get shift paddles and they create fake shifts in the transaxle which totally defeats the purpose of the power split device in my opinion.

 

More likely they are using the dash from the non-hybrid, and were too cheap to repurpose the tach.

In the Camry hybrid, the paddle shifters and sequential shifter don't work as virtual gears. They are a replacement to the B 'gear' in the Prius, which may have been labeled L in other Toyota hybrids. In B, a Prius would make more use of engine braking with foot off the accelerator. In the Camry, you got six degrees of the braking instead of just the one in the Prius. From the manual, those fake shift points would increase the engine's operating rpms from the car's D for increased acceleration.

So you might have something more useful than psuedo gears.

 

I was thinking along those lines, and doesn't reflect good on Toyota: it's an econobox, and that kinda shows it.

Yeah if they ditched the tach they'd have a nice space for a more fullsome Hybrid System Indicator. Something actually useful.

 

Go look at the Rav4 hybrid if you want an example of wasted dash screen space. Maybe 4 by 4 inches of how eco you are driving. My v showed that in a tenth the space. And 4 by 4 to show just gas gauge and coolant temp. I also miss the instantaneous MPG readout as it would guide my right foot. At least the center screen has lots of customization options. But so many of the nannie status displays could have been made more visible with better use of space.

 

Wao! Bob. Are you the one at the right or left? Nice ride though.

 

In my wife’s NX300h she has the paddle shifters, minus on the left and plus on the right. They act as real gears as I tried it once and downshifted as I accelerated onto the Thruway (much to my wife’s surprise and mild annoyance). They are faster than the e-CVT but clumsier to use because you have to put the shifter in S, then you can use the paddles. She thought I was going to break the engine when the RPMs went up rather dramatically but linear to the acceleration.

If I do it again, I might hook up the OBD reader and see what the RPMs look like versus the RPMs of MG2. From what I remember, it pretty much bypassed MG2. It will not save gas but acts as regular 6 speed tranny.


iPad ? Pro

 

Like a place for indicator lights instead of the jarring full screen popups on the Gen 4?

 

I believe his housekeeper is still driving that car.

 

Tachometer - I can't count the number of times journalists winge "but there is no tachometer". Bearing in mind that at least 50% of drivers have no idea what it does, and more like 90% never look at it very much - it's generally wasted space except for the few. Even in a normal Auto, they're of little use most of the time. Remember these?


The only extra ones I'd put in were temperature gauges on old cars with an "idiot light", but kept the idiot light!!

Back to tachos in Hybrids - I remember one in a hybrid - I think might have been the Jazz?? had a tacho - it was like a lunatic, it'd show "0", then fly up to 4000, back to 2000, jumping all over the place, absolutely no use at all. On the Gen4, you can generally hear if the engine was running - not that it matters - and it just does the RPM that it feels is most appropriate at the time.

 

I like a tach in a car, but this Prius c is the first car I’ve owned where I really don’t miss it. I don’t care, I know the computer is managing it appropriately.