Way Better Than A Tesla! //2026 Toyota Prius PHEV//
Today we are looking at the plug-in hybrid Prius and spoiler alert, there are no changes for 2026. I’ll include a link to the Lexus here in Murray’s website in the description down below. Also include a link to my car buying guide. Let’s get into it. [Music] Powering this is a 2 L plug-in hybrid 4 cylinder that produces 220 horsepower. This can get 40 miles on a charge and can still get over 50 miles per gallon even if you don’t charge it. I’m trying to hit 500,000 subscribers before the end of the year. I’d really appreciate if you’d help out with that. Now, when it comes to coloration, this one’s not too exciting. It’s just black, but the headlights on the Prius pretty sharp looking. Other than that, we do have parking sensors on the front end and a chrome Toyota badge. And yeah, that’s pretty much it. Tire wheel setup is 195 by 50 by 19. You got silver on the front face of the wheel. And notice the wheels a little bit more closed off. Supposed to help out with aerodynamic efficiency. This one also has these painted fender flares. You can see the mirror cap is painted. Same thing with the door handle. Here’s the side profile of the Prius. Again, sculpted for aerodynamic efficiency. So, it kind of looks like a bean or yeah, kind of a bean. When it comes to key fob features, you just have your lock and unlock with this version and the Toyota logo there at the bottom. Now, there is this little popper here to open up the rear hatch. 1500 watt outlet in the back. Now, not a crazy amount of space. Again, this is a compact car, but it’s got a decent amount in the hatchback really helps out with opening the space up. Of course, when you’re all done, they give you a nice handle. Nice for the short people, right? Smoked out tail light is pretty cool looking. And then you’ve got your new PV badge instead of prime. That will cap things off for the exterior of this Prius. Still got the funky door handle. And let’s pop inside. Soft touch on the armrest section. And then, as you can see, the seats are perforated all down the center. We’ve got some nice red stitching on these seats, too. Leg room back here is pretty good. We also have some USB ports in the back. And you can see we got another 1500 W outlet. Headroom in the rear. Not massive, but I do fit technically. Keyless entry for up front. And let’s pop in. Blind spot monitoring with the mirrors. And then I do like the finish on all the window controls and everything. Kind of Lexuslike. Front seats have nice trim on the exterior. You also have perforated trim in the center. Power adjustments. Lumbar support too. Passenger seats manual with the adjustment. Does have features like a heated steering wheel. And this is all off to the left hand side of the steering wheel. By the way, you’ve got stats turn on the outlet. Let’s start her up. Hear that Prius roar. Now, this still has the kind of funky looking Prius steering wheel. Practical controls for your adaptive cruise control and lane departure on the right hand side. On the left hand side, you’ve got controls for the center stack volume command controls as well. I will never stop hating this gauge cluster. First off, the positioning is horrible. The glare is horrible. And yeah, it gives you basic information. Like right now, we’re in EV mode. Shows us our MPG, which uh yeah, that’s not as good as it should be. But anyways, just not good placement. I mean, seriously, this is literally my POV. That’s not great. Backup camera in reverse. Pretty good resolution. As for the rest of the screen, shortcut bar here on the side, relatively quick to respond. Volume control there. Uh so mostly digital, but you do have still physical volume control, which is nice. Now, we just have a single zone climate. We do have automatic climate. and heated seats, but the single zone is supposed to be more economical. Got some USB ports in a 12vt and then you can pull that up for more storage underneath. Kind of a cool little feature. Cup holders right in front. We got the shifter here. And then next to it, we’ve got our wireless phone charging pad. Behind that shifter, you’ve got the drive mode select, parking brake, auto hold, and then you can shift between hybrid, EV, auto, and then you can also shift between charging the battery or using up the battery. The choice is yours. center console. It’s got a couple USB ports inside. Uh USBC’s for those of you wondering. Nice trim on the top and then no center for this car. Let’s see how the Prius performs. Prius Prime. Oh, sorry. I mean plug-in hybrid. Plug-in hybrid. I think it’s interesting that they changed the name cuz I mean we all know we all know Prime. It’s like if you can’t understand that Prime’s plug-in hybrid, then uh you got bigger problems. But hey, I guess that’s just the way that things are going to go. May maybe they want to make sure that Toyota’s as like straightforward as possible and Lexus can be the one with the confusing names cuz like you look at the new uh many of the new Lexuses TX 350. What does that mean? It doesn’t even have a doesn’t even have a V6. Cuz usually like when you have a 350 and a badge, it usually indicated 3.5 L engine. Then you assume, okay, 3.5 is probably a V6. But no, it’s got a 2.4 L 4-cylinder. So, it doesn’t doesn’t even mean anything anymore. And it doesn’t have 350 uh pound- feet of torque either. It’s got like 310 lb feet or I think maybe 317. So, the badges are confusing. They don’t mean anything anymore. The world that we uh live in now. But Prius plug-in hybrid, its badge is not confusing and it does mean something. Man, she scoots. This is a quick car. It’s one thing that’s nice about Prius is they’re pretty quick. Again, it’s not a huge car. It’s a similar in size to like a Toyota Corolla. Got over 200 horsepower. Instant torque with the electric side of things. We’re just in the H uh HV. We’re in the hybrid mode right now. We’re in the HV mode. It’s the same thing. But yeah, torque’s good. It’s got a nice shove to it. Let’s see if we can EV mode. Unavailable battery low. Nice. I have driven one of these in the EV mode and I can tell you it’s still quick and with Toyota’s plug-in hybrid, you’re able to get you’re able to get the range. Some plug-in hybrids it’s uh not as easy. But with as long as you keep everything stock on this, which I don’t know why you’d modify a Prius, it’s a Prius. Yeah, as long as you keep everything stock on this, it’s pretty easy to get the range and the fuel economy. I’ve tested a bunch of Priuses over the year and it’s a good car. I think it’s one of Toyota’s best cars they make. Oh man, traction control went that time. This thing scoots like it’s it’s fast. You don’t need any more power than this if you’re looking for a fuel economy car. It’s really quite impressive. Still going to pop into EV mode. Right. Right now we basically have a traditional hybrid. And like I said, if you run it in traditional hybrid mode and you don’t drive it like I’m driving it in this video, you can still get over 50 m per gallon. But if you plug it in all the time, then well, depending on how often you plug it in will determine your fuel economy. I’ve had some people tell me it’s like, I don’t remember the last time I filled up with gas. And it’s like, well, you you want to make sure you use up that tank every so often so you don’t have old gas sitting in there. That’s not exactly the best thing. That is one downside with these plugin hybrids. I suppose sometimes people can get old gas. So overall, I like how this drives. Again, understand this is an economy car at the end of the day. Like it’s got a nice interior. It’s got some nice features, but yeah, it’s it’s an economy car that gets great fuel economy. And the plug-in hybrid version, the benefit with this is if you’re able to plug it in every single day, you use significantly less gas. You basically have an electric car, right, for the short trips, but then you still have a regular hybrid for the longer trips. So, you still get great fuel economy in the longer trips, and you can fill up at gas stations. So, you really do get the best of both worlds with this. And Toyota system, unlike a lot of other plug-in hybrids on the market, it’s reliable. So, you also have a system that you can trust. And you can see why these are selling out and will continue to sell out because The packaging on it just is really good. Toyota understands that hybrid buyers want efficiency and reliability, not power. And like I said, it’s got enough power, but its focus is efficiency and reliability first. Power is kind of secondary. Let me know your thoughts on the new Prius PV. Not prime PV. [Music]
Today I drive and review a 2026 Toyota Prius Plug In Hybrid!
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