Review Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid 2018

I live in Sweden and has translated most of this text using Google translate, hope it's understandable. Some options/equipment can also be uniqe for our country and driving conditions.


After careful consideration, I bought a Prius in May 2024 with about 80000 km (50000 miles) on the odometer and have now driven almost 8000 km (5000 miles).
The first impressions you get of a car can easily be misleading, but when you have had the chance to use it for a while, you learn its advantages and disadvantages, and I therefore thought I would present my own review about this.

It is incredibly comfortable to drive with perfect seats and clear instrumentation - perhaps a little overworked for those who are not technically interested. The CVT gearbox works fine and suits my driving style perfectly. The electric motors gives it fairly fast characteristics in traffic when needed and the fuel consumption when running on petrol is almost improbably low, I have managed to drive at 3.1 liters/100 km on the highway (91 miles/gallon)!

The entire finish looks premium with nice material choices and discreet lighting in various places. All buttons are illuminated and the HUD display (Head Up Display - reflecting speed etc. in the window) is a good detail. I was hesitant at first about the high-gloss plastic but it works. Nice to have a built-in charging pad even if it isn't fast. However, I think the placement of the buttons for the seat heating feels ill-conceived.

It is very spacious, especially in the backseat. I have the “wrong” model year, the following year they came with three seats in the back - I only have two, but for most people that is enough. The luggage is quite large but the sloping window gives some limitations in the cargo space. The cargo area is not flat - as it says in the brochure! - there is a fairly high edge between the luggage and the rear seat when you fold it down and that can be a bit of a shame sometimes. There is no rear window wiper at all!

The noise level could be lower but is still quite OK. This is an Executive which is the highest equipment level but there are also incomprehensible misses in such an expensive model: why is there no electric tailgate closing/opening, heated steering wheel and the option to automatically lock the doors when you start driving?

The infotainment system is quite extensive but the JBL sound is not impressive, it really doesn't sound like a premium system. My former car - Lexus with ML-sound was stunning compared to this! The touch screen is clear but not the most responsive and I actually miss a regular volume knob. But HF works well, even the voice recognition control. The GPS is one of the better ones I've tested, although I would have preferred a pure Android system connected to Google Maps. Unfortunately, however, there is no support for live data. It has support for many sources for the audio system and superb radio reception.

An interesting feature is the automatic high beam. At first I thought there was something wrong with it as it sometimes didn't work but it later turned out that it only works at speeds above 55km/h! Worthless if you drive on dark country roads, then you simply have to turn this system off. Speaking of lights: this one has the same flaw as all modern cars, the taillights are not on in Auto mode in daylight. I would like to have a selectable setting for this in the car's system - in all modern cars.

How far you can drive on the battery according to the car's own data is not correct. I have 16 km to work, an uncomplicated route with just 80km/h and 100 km/h roads and a few roundabouts where it is 60 km/h. The car is stored in a warm garage. If I start with battery 100%, it says I can go 45 km but when I get there I am down to about 45% and can't even go another 20 km, it should be 65%. False numbers then - but I think that applies to the entire car industry. Sometimes the petrol engine also starts seemingly for no reason even though I'm driving on EV and Eco but I've had it explained to me that there are different parameters in the car's other systems that control this, extra power is needed for heating for example and this can happen.

The app that is available for this model is a joke. What can you do with it? Well, see the service history and pre-program a route to the GPS. No more functions! No checking the battery charge, turning on the heating, unlocking the car, seeing statistics etc, none of what you find in newer apps. This is despite the fact that you can let the car connect to the internet via your mobile phone. Strange.

Heating in winter is another nut to crack. I have a charging station at work but there is of course no engine heater socket so that means you have to move the car to such a station when charging is complete. But! There is a timer function that includes “climate control”. Handy if you live in very warm countries as the car can be programmed to be cooled down when you are going to leave. Heating then? Well, this is also intended to work in the same function but the heat that actually comes out is barely noticeable, it can’t even be compared to the smallest kind of cabin heater but the heat comes noticeably faster once you are on the move with this activated. When it gets really cold outside, like below -10, the petrol engine has to work almost all the time to keep warm and I also find that it takes an unusually long time to get up to a comfortable temperature if you were to start in these temperatures but then there is no problem keeping the cabin warm even if the temperature goes down to -20. My Lexus hybrid which had the same engine but was not a plug-in did not have this problem. Pure electric cars with large batteries have a large heat pump that heats the car via the car's battery (which is also heated) but of course this takes a lot of power so it is not applicable here. But regardless of this, the car has quite poor heating in the winter cold, it takes an unusually long time to get the heat up even if it is only the petrol engine that is running. However, there is no problem then keeping the temperature at a comfortable level.

The quality of the image regarding the reversing camera has improved siginficant but why haven't they done like VW and others: hidden it behind a hatch that opens when reverse is kicked in? The lens gets dirty in no time otherwise. I have not yet managed to figure out how the semi-automatic parking system works but there are many sensors around the car that warn if you are close to an object, including the cross-traffic warning when you are going to reverse and it works really well.

When I bought the car, I intended to install a towbar. This is available for the same Prius G4 that is not plug-in. But Toyota has not approved this particular model with a towbar! It was a bit of a swindle because there are no major differences between these two cars otherwise.

The fact that they have a TPMS system with sensors integrated with the valves is strange, the competitors solved this in other ways long ago. This means problems with batteries that run out and have to be replaced at high cost, and the sensors are paired with the car, so you have to move them to other rims if you want to change them. You can do better, Toyota!

Does that sound whiny? Yes, but there are also good things! The LED light on both the high beam and low beam is one of them. Both of these are really good! The adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, license plate reading, rain sensor, blind spot warning, cross traffic warning and other fun things work really well. You quickly get used to keyless doors and start, and today it would be difficult to do without them.

Despite all the negative comments, I am very happy with the car! Unlike some, I think it is really stylish and what it gains most from is the consumption, comfort and all the features that, in the Toyota way, just work.

Wishes? Yes, it is apparently available in a 4WD version in other countries, why is it not offered here? Then I would like to have steering wheel heating in our cold country, well better heating, in general. A slightly larger battery would also be nice, like double the capacity. Possibility of a towbar, thank you. And a better app!