I love my gen1 PIP but truly hate the Prius Prime.

I think it's one of the fundamental laws of the universe: cars on road trips are ALWAYS full to the gills.

 

If not, add more stuff!

 

That's NEVER necessary, it's always full, like magic.

 

I posted something similar about my disdain for the 4th gen looks in another thread. I thought it was just too much. Trying to be fancy and overdoing it. But the more I look at it the more I realized the proportions are off. Of course it’s all opinion but to me: it looks like two different cars stuck together. The front doors,fenders, and hood looks like an updated Prius. The back doors, fenders, and hatch look like a sportier car. If you cover up one half and look at the other it looks okay. The front doors are way bigger than the rear doors which looks weird, and they have too much glass compared to the rear doors. The hood is too high compared to the front of the front of metal part of the front doors.

The 1st gen Prius looked like an econo sedan, nothing special, pretty blah, but nothing too weird.

The 2nd gen got the classic Prius shape. A wedge shaped hatchback. Very utilitarian. Good lines and proportions, but pretty drab.

The 3rd gen refined the 2nd. Some sharper corners to dress it up. But a very similar utilitarian look. Nothing fancy but nothing offensive.

The 4th they tried to get too fancy and futuristic, and as mentioned they messed up he lines and proportions IMO.

4th gen is better in almost all ways though. If they were the same price I’d take the 4h gen. But I got a 1st Gen pip advanced with 27,000 miles for $16,000. About half the cost of a new car so that makes it way more attractive overall.

 

Some more styling thoughts:

It seems like there's so much $'s riding on styling, the manufacturers have a herd-mentality. If one does some tweak, and it catches on, then the other's pile on, copying it.

Too, once they do something, anything, there seems to be an obligation to stick with it. And the more off-the-wall, the more tenacious/defensive they get. Lexus front grills for example...

With the 4th gen Prius, and Prius Prime, I think they got a lot of their styling cues from Hyundai, basically aped the look, and tried to exaggerate/modify it some, to make it "theirs". Hyundai was like the class clown, who gets the ball rolling. Then other's join in with the merriment. Meanwhile Hyundai kept it subdued, calmed down, left the imitators to take things too far.

 

Oh dear...

From the front wheels back it looks ok. But...

 

Glad you like the car. I have a '14 PiP that I bought 2 years old with 39K KM, and now have 178K KM, and it has been great. That replaced my Gen 2 which was needing major repairs (new engine), but the car had almost 400K on it over 10 years, so it did it's job.

I was never a big fan of the regular Gen 4 looks (though the 2019+ is a bit better), but I think the Prime is very sharp, especially the front end with the quad LEDs. The rear end is nice too, but I would probably give up the wavy glass in exchange for a rear wiper, which will be hard to adjust to not having since my last 3 cars have been hatchbacks with a wiper, but by no means a deal breaker. The loss of ~3 cu ft compared to the PIP does not seem as bad as it visually appears with the raised deck, since 19 cu ft is still more than many sedans, and most PHEV. But the only time this might be an issue is on road trips with passengers, and there is a reasonable workaround for this in putting a roofbox for added cargo when needed.

I think the Prime overall is a very sharp looking car. I do think some of the dimensions do look ever so slightly off, such as the 15" wheels seem slightly small since most non-econo cars now come with at least 16", and I do find the car a bit "tall-looking" around the rear wheels, but again, a very minor observation and would not stop me from picking one up.

As far as next vehicles, I have my eye on either a Prius Prime or Rav4 Prime, but the latter would only happen if I get a significant raise and of course can find one to buy when I am ready to do so (in 1-2 years)... as supply seems to be an issue. I like to get my vehicles fully equipped though (since I'm a technology geek), and not sure I can swallow the price of a loaded Rav4, since our rebates in Ontario are not good any more ($5000 on full EV or PHEV with large battery (includes R4P), or $2500 for small PHEV like PP). That's the federal rebate in Canada.

Overall, I have been very happy with the PIP over the last 4+ years, and as much as I look forward to one day upgrading to Prime, it is not an urgency. Besides, I guess there should be redesigned Prime coming in a year or two..., depending if they count 2016 in the model cycle or not since there was no PHEV that year?

One feature that I hope makes it into a future year would be an optional moonroof (if we don't get the solar roof), as I miss not having one. A secondary creature comfort would be memory seats/mirrors like on some competitors, since my wife is considerably shorter than me. But I digress and I am going OT for this thread.

Sorry for the long post.

 

Toyota must have figured that Prius people are going to love this car no matter how ugly it is....so we might as well go all in. Ugliness has become a "thing" with Prius. My Prime's wiperless, concave rear window never ceases to freak me out, even more than the insane bumper covers and lights. But this car is 3x what I thought it would be. I love it!

 

The Prime has the large black grille like the Lexus and most other Toyotas today. Lexus are usually worse than Toyotas but I saw a Prime from a distance once and wondered why a Lexus had a Toyota logo.

I bought the Gen 4 partially due to it NOT having the big black grille. @jerrymildred may be correct but some of us have the Wife Acceptance Factor too. She was horrified I was even considering a newer Corolla when she saw a photo.

 

That can be a big factor. If mom's not happy, ain't no one happy; if dad ain't happy, ain't no one cares.

My wife was only disappointed that the magnetic blue wasn't available, but the only way to get that was a trip to the northeast for a new Prime which would have cost a little more. She likes the money more than the color. So, when it was time to upgrade her 2007 Prius, I just offered information and said, "whatever you want."