Prius Prime XSE Premium vs Prius Limited AWD - For the same money, which would you buy?

Love my Limited , but that being said - it would be a tough choice between that and Prime XSE. My work commute is 15 minutes and the Limited mph is relatively poor (40mpg). The sweet spot is around 30 mins for 47-48mpg. Prime would be better in that scenario.

I do love the AWD though. Not sure how it compares to FWD but probably no difference most of the time and in winter, the wheels make most of the difference

 

The Level 1 should be plenty for the Prime. EV operation will let you avoid the warm up plenty on short trips for most of the year. AWD can be nice, but I'd think ground clearance will be more of an issue when FWD isn't enough. Unless all your miles and long trips, the hybrid efficiency of the Prius isn't going to be much of an advantage.

 

I have the XLE AWD (Prius) and milder snow compared to Canada (NY State). If I were in your shoes, I'd go for the Limited. I know its a marketing thing, but there is a lot of things features wise in the Limited over the XLE/XSE that makes it worth it. if you can get the rebate, wonder if you'd be able to consider the Prime Limited.

 

What are your typical driving routines?

My home charger is on top of Hamilton mountain, and it is a bit of a pain not to be able to fully charge & forget about it before travelling through downtown (unless I want the engine to kick in going downhill).

However I use the charging schedule to charge in the middle of the night (3-4am is when our hydro is greenest, see ieso.ca) and usually tell it to stop when there's an hour's charging left.

It's pretty great to be able to drive in town fully electrically. I'm still on the all-season tires the Prime XSE Premium came with (waiting for all-weather tires in this size) and haven't had any issue yet.

Having the choice of using two energy sources is nice... plus, the Prime's doubles as a 1500W backup generator, with the plugs in the car. I'm still looking for that window fitting that Toyota showed off at the Gen 5 debut, which I can't find at the moment.

Unless your particular driving patterns dictate otherwise, I would recommend the Prius Limited in Ontario only to drivers who live in colder, rural areas, where typical round trip drives are over 100km, or to people who can't charge at all at home. Here, charging costs are 1/3 to 1/4 the cost of gasoline.

 

My $0.02. Aside from what was already mentioned, the Prime is a real pleasure to drive in all electric. No raspy engine noise, great acceleration. I hate when I switch to gas. We had a major snowstorm here in NJ last week. We got three inches of relatively wet snow, didn't bother using the snowblower, just drove the car out of the garage and over the snow, no problem. I was not concerned without AWD. Our second car is a Subaru Outback AWD, and sounds like you are in the same boat with the 2nd car as a RAV4 AWD. I feel more comfortable parallel parking that into a snowbank, or taking it into a muddy lot out apple picking, for the rare occasions when we need to do that.

 

Same for me wanted AWD I have driven my 23 limited AWD and has been quite good in varying conditions performance and handling.

 

i'd go for the prime, i think you'll be fine with L1, but i guess it depends on how badly you need the awd.
any desire for a spare tyre?

 

but you can put one in the prius i think, there's no room in the prime. and maybe there's no room in the awd prius, i have forgotten.
our 2024 hycam has a donut. we're very happy with the 50mpg, it's not awd though.
i can't to see the next gen hycam in person.

 

The charger is in the way of where the spare would go on the Prime.

 

In your case, I'd say get whichever one you can. Your pros and cons are split pretty much right down the middle.

I faced the same choice(as you can see from my profile, I went with the AWD Limited). I'm from a colder climate and take a lot of short trips, so I wasn't going to see as much benefit from the Prime*. If you had a garage to keep your car warmish during the winter, I would say the Prime for you, but the lack of a garage hurts that a bit. The AWD would be nice on your hill, but a really good set of tires will do far more. The trims are identical between the Limited and Premium, so that's a wash. The Prime gets traffic jam assist, but you mostly work from home. The Limited has the capability to add a spare if that's important to you, but it sounds like it probably isn't.

The decision is so close in your case that you could probably base it on whether you want the red light on the dash or the blue light.

If I were you, I'd put my name in for both and grab whichever showed up first.



*normally the Prime is better for short trips, but even the Prime runs its engine at startup when the temps get low enough

 

Yeah just to summarize, up here:

None have spares
All have 19" rims
All have sunroofs
All have awd

 

AWD supposedly does not interfere with adding spare tire.

 

Ah whoops. Yeah just considering Prius gen 5.

 

If Primes weren't all pre-sold with markups in our area since launch, we would have opted for one too. Love the idea of being able to make all your local commutes on battery only. Plus that solar roof sounds pretty cool.

That being said, the fuel efficiency of the AWD is still great and cheap enough at the pump. Was able to test out the AWD in snow yesterday and it's always nice to have the added peace of mind in inclement weather.