Toyota Prius Review

Cars.com experts walk you through the Toyota Prius and its important new features.

Toyota Prius Review Hi! I'm Kelsey Mays for Cars.com. We’re at the Detroit Auto Show checking out probably the most significant entry this year; it’s the redesigned 3rd generation Toyota Prius. The car Toyota calls its halo car for the environmental brand image and it looks a lot like the outgoing Prius probably a good thing given that car’s owner loyalty. The Prius’ silhouette is the same Toyota says it kind of move this sort of pump where the roof arches a little bit farther rearward that translates into a little bit better headroom in the backseat. The rear kind of looks the same. These taillights have been spruced up a little bit. They still use the clear lens design. There's a little bit more of a spoiler here. Overall, the car is even slightly more aerodynamic than it used to be that helps it get 50 miles per gallon combined now. That’s what Toyota says. The new Honda Insight Hybrid gets in the low 40s. The old Prius only got in the mid 40s, 50 miles per gallon combined; that’s pretty good. Toyota has been slipping on some of its latest interior designs cars like the Corolla and even the current Camry, not too impressive. This really shows that the company might be back on track. Plastics are kind of harder to touch. That’s kind of expected in the small and midsized car range now. They have this nice textured appearance. It looked very, very high end actually. All the buttons and stuff have a very, very high quality on damping to them. You’ll notice, there's kind of a similar layout to what's in the old Prius. You’ve got the double glove box here. There's kind of a long area here to store things. This center section now kind of extends out. In the old Prius, it was sort of just a hump here in the center. There's a little bit of storage space underneath. Steering wheel, tilts as well as telescope. Now, the old steering wheel just tilted and this sort of hi-tech electronic gear shifter has been moved down here to the center area. It used to be up here on the dashboard itself. There are a few real high tech options this year. This car will have the self-parking feature from Lexus. In fact, it will pull into parallel parking spots on its own if it wants, if you want to do that. There's also going to be an optional solar panel moonroof that actually has solar cells in it that can power the AC system entirely electrically while the car is parked to keep the car cooler, so the AC doesn’t have to work so hard when you get back in all in the name of more efficiency. Certainly cool things for those of you who really want to be environmental. There’s a lot of talk in this show about electric plug in cars, extended range electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt. That’s good and all but really right now; 50 mile per gallon hybrid is still one of the best cars and the most efficient cars you can buy. The old Prius had lots of loyal owners. Like I said earlier, this car should have no problem selling like crazy. For additional information on this car or any other, go to Cars.com and our blog Kicking Tires.