2017 Toyota Prius Prime plug-in hybrid gets better

As the industry focuses more on electric vehicles, Toyota, makers of the most famous hybrid vehicle ever, gave it their first shot with the Prius Plug-in Hybrid based on the last-gen Prius. Now there is a new plug-in hybrid model based on the all-new Prius, the latter being a regular hybrid that doesn’t plug into a wall socket. Dubbed the Toyota Prius Prime, Toyota says that it was designed based heavily on customer feedback.

First of all, it looks a fair bit better than the regular Prius. Though the side profile of both the cars remain the same, the front and rear have their own distinct looks.

Nathan Kokes, the brand manager for Toyota’s advanced technology vehicles stated that he was ‘reading a lot’ as they were developing the Prime. He paid attention to the blog posts and Prius chats, in order to know what customers want.

Toyota is keeping a tight lip on the estimated fuel efficiency figures of the Prime. It has an electric top speed of 134 kph, which is an improvement over the previous model’s 100 kph. The new powertrain uses a one-way clutch coupled with two electric motors so as to double the amount of power that reaches the wheel.

The car is made to run in EV mode by default with a provision for an EV-auto mode which allows the engine to kick in if its more efficient to do so. The Prime is built as a four-seater to enable the engineers to take out some structural weight by eliminating the fifth passenger.

With its limited top speed, the Prius Prime will likely never pop up in the Middle East, but maybe the surprisingly-capable new Toyota Prius hybrid we now get here will get the Prime’s attractive face sometime in the near future.