I think it’s safe to say that the most dramatic glow-up of the LA Auto Show is the new 2023 Toyota Prius, which went from at best unfortunate-looking in its previous generation to what is finally a genuinely attractive car. I’m not going to lie: I had thought that Toyota’s design language was headed for real disaster, as it has been an uncomfortable riot of flaps and curves and vents and creases that I once termed, derisively, Cybaroque. Thankfully, Toyota’s designers have pretty dramatically pulled their design out of a nosedive, and one of the results is the new Toyota Prius. We did a full design breakdown on the car already, but cars are physical, visceral things, so David Tracy and I went to check it out in person, and because we both have crushes on you, we wanted you to see, too.
Here’s our walkaround video:
The new look works in person, I think. The proportions are good, especially the way the wider rear hips feel, and the dramatic rake of the roofline feels sleek and modern, even if we can’t really figure out where the A-pillar ends and the roof begins.
One puzzling issue I had with the new look is this:
Why, Toyota? For the roughly half of U.S. states that don’t require a front plate, do they really have to have a bumper that looks like someone jammed a brick in there and then painted over it? Perhaps this is the Euro/Asia bumper skin and the U.S.-market one will have something that works with or without a front plate? That’s possible, I suppose, and at least they considered the front plate at all, which some cars just don’t at all. But still.
Also interesting is the windshield wiper setup, which has one very beefy wiper mount that seems to have an extra joint, perhaps to reach high up to the far corner of the windshield?
David also rolls around under the new Prius to try to learn some of the new Prius’ suspension and chassis secrets, and so far I think the most notable discovery is that the fuel tank appears to be located behind the rear axle — not a common location for a modern car. David and I agreed not to mention the Ford Pinto in this context, so I won’t. [Editor’s Note: This is a joke. Toyota safety engineers tend to know what they’re doing. -DT].
Overall, this is a massive improvement to a very important car. The old Priuses did their jobs very well but were never what you might call non-stomach-churning to look at. Also, sometimes they beeped so freaking much you’d want to puke. This new one looks great, and I’ll let myself hope it doesn’t beep so damn much.
So, this is pretty, but I like the design of the current Prius. It has a deliberately “Futuristic” look.
Also, I like the look of a coupe the best, so if they’re trending that way by hiding the rear door handles, that works for me.
I guess it’s too early to say how the 2023 Prius will age, but I think the 2022 Prius’s “Fururistic” look you speak of already looks 10 years old, especially from the back, though in the front of certain colors (like the green, really exemplifies the black plastic vents)
That windshield wiper mechanism is an interesting one because most cars are either going with a traditional tandem set up or a symmetrical overlap set up (with or without smart motors). A 4-bar link on one of the wiper arms was one of the ways to obtain the necessary wiper zone coverages when a symmetrical overlap system wasn’t an option. I wonder if the mechanism allows for a single wiper motor-transmission configuration for both LHD and RHD models? One of the other reasons for the wiper mechanism is to ensure that the windshield mounted forward looking crash avoidance cameras are cleared when raining.
I think the US should have a Euro-style front plate, with the 2-letter state abbreviation stacked vertically on the left, then the plate number. It would fit on that silly block, and the rear plate can be the standard rectangle. The redesigned front plate would work a lot better with the current gaping maw design that reduces the height of the bumper bar to a bare minimum.
I think the new Prius is pretty nifty. Although the Teslas have a similar form, I find little imaginative or stylish with the Model whatevers.
It blows my mind/enrages me that no states have made this an optional, extra-cost option. I’d pay for it.
Except maybe Puerto Rico? I read somewhere that they do offer something like this, but I’ve never actually seen one.
I’ve been looking for a new eco car to throw a ton of miles at, might even consider this despite the lack of a proper transmission. It’s beautiful, and the efficiency is impressive.
Did anyone see if they got rid of the pointlessly unique shifter?
If so, and the beeping can be disabled, I might be in.
Am I the only person in the world who likes the design of the Curren Prius???
Quite possibly yes
I own a Prius, I’d buy another Prius. I don’t like the current Prius. But I don’t like my 3rd gen for its awesome looks.
The chonky wiper arm base is basically the same as the one on the latest-generation Mercedes Metris vans. With the windshield being tall but kind of narrow, it lets them cover more of the windshield with the wiper.
I look forward to the passing of Cyboroque and a revival of the Worn Soap Bar school of auto design.
Also i think we need a poll/vote here. Looking at the photo in the header here i was struck by the Dave and Torch to the Red and Green M&Ms in the commercials. But also a similarity to Burt and Ernie. Anyone else see it?
Before anyone is offended I like Dave, Jason, M&Ms, and Sesame Street.
A couple of random thoughts
1. I like the looks but am leery of North Americans fitting in such a sleek auto. Fat/old people getting in and out is a thing. I am fat going on old so yeah.
2. The front license plate with half the states requiring it you either do two designs or one with. But as stated slap a dealer ad plate on and noone will notice. Also I may be culturally insensitive here but the Japanese a seem to be more in sync across the country than other cultures and i think that cause single mindedness in design and hurts out of home market sales.
3. Old Prius? Am i the only one who noticed the Japanese kind of design around their cartoon anime figures? I saw that previous generation Prius and saw Stich from Lilo and Stich.
4. That hidden back door handle. Yeah anyone heard of a butterface? Up close it may turn some off but 10 feet away on an ad/lot/etc it makes the lines look cleaner. And higher up maybe less frozen material?
5. That sloping front looks cool but blending in the roof kind oc throws it off for me. Also remember the GM minivans? The slope forced the drivers seat back to the middle of the vehicle and lost tons of cargo space. I think this Prius will be out of balance.
Have you though of using a selfie stick instead of always crawling under cars in auto shows? Not that I don’t appreciate your dedication in seeing what’s under the car.
Agreed, looks much better but it seems like a pastiche of existing designs, i.e. GM Volt, Telsa and the rear light set up looks like it came from Dodge.
Wow, this is such a futuristic design! I really love my 2020 Ioniq but I will seriously be considering this Prius as my new daily. What an attractive look! Love it!
I wonder about blind spots with the A pillars since they’re so far forward. And the C pillars (a good portion of which are hiding behind the blacked out sections of the rear window) look like they block a lot of rearward vision.
A few theories from the Youtube comments on the license plate “brick”;
1. This car or at least the bumper is wrapped for the show circuit. They just wrapped over the bolt-on license plate bracket.
2. It’s the rest-of-world bumper cover and the US/Canada one will be slightly different.
3. Dealers have a space to put a forward-facing advertising sticker in non-front-plate jurisdictions (Torch would know if this is the case in NC, it’s certainly common in Quebec.)
3. Really? They do that? First thing I did on my last two cars was to un-dealer-brand it as much as possible. Dealer had to pull their stickers/badge off before I’d take delivery, and I pulled out a razor blade and removed the widow decals as soon as I got home. Dealer’s license-plate surround went as soon as the temp tags got replaced with real plates.
My grandfather always used to make the dealer pull their shit off of his cars when he bought them. His position was that if he was going to advertise for them, they should be paying him for the privilege.
I feel the same way. I got a new-to-me car recently (private party sale) and as soon as I got it home I got out the hair dryer and plastic putty knife, and scraped off the dealer’s labeling under the badge. When I bought my Miata (at a dealer) I didn’t even let them put that stuff on.
I love how we can fall in love with an egg.
In addition to the other Prius gens mentioned in the comments, most if not all generations of Lexus RX have had a similar articulating wiper base/mount, surely a few other Toyotas too. The LS for some generations had something that would articulate the blade in a different direction than the arm – only ever seen it in passing, so probably not describing it well and don’t know if there’s a term for it.
I would enjoy an auto-lighting-style series on wiper types. Toyota would actually have a good showing – compared to others, they have actually dabbled with a few “different” wiper setups over the years. Dual wiper system on Cressida and Camry wagons, the single-arm wiper on smaller cars like 3rd-gen Yaris, concealed top-mount rear wipers under the roof spoiler over the 2010s on Sienna and some SUVs – though Sienna switched back to a mount on the base on the current gen.
Re: the beeping, back when my partner took ownership of her 3rd gen Prius one of the first things she asked me to do was make the damn thing stop beeping so much. It beeps if your seatbelt isn’t on, it beeps if you’re moving with the door open, it beeps constantly if you’re driving in reverse.
Since the car spends a lot of time on her farm where it’s not unheard-of to do all three of those things at once (reversing with the hatch open and no seatbelt on in order to bring the car closer to a bunch of crates that need loading, for instance) this was obviously intolerable. Carista sorted me out though, and let me turn most of that shit off through the OBDII port.
They really do beep constantly, and it really is obnoxious.
This is good to know, not that I’m likely to buy one, but I can’t f’n stand beeping anything—it’s instant kill-reflex trigger rage. I have a 1/4 miles driveway and often have to pick up and toss fallen branches from our wussy trees that refuse to hold themselves together, so I also commonly drive without the belt and the door open. The new car has a trick to disabling the seatbelt chime, which is nice.
It’s a looker and with the TNGA being a decent driver, it’s killer combo. I’m pretty sure one these will be the replacement when our beloved TDI gives up.
The large joint on the windshield wipre is to articulate the wiper to avoid the top of the windshield while allowing it to reach farther to the side. When the bolts securing that mechanism get loose, the wiper do some weird movements. Easy to fix, but weird to watch. This happened on my Gen 2 2006 Prius. My Gen 4 4 2020 Prius AWD has no such mechanism, just normal pivot points.
Good work, btw: I believe even my US 2nd gen prius (3rd global gen) had articulating wiper. & that rear end treatment, that cut-off is very Audi A7-ish, IMO.
Either you both drank a gallon of coffee each, or you got into the booger sugar! haha. That was frenetic 🙂
Also, it looks like you all are having a blast! Enjoy it. You two have leveled up big-time compared to say 18 months ago. (until the lawsuits for food poisoning from jean-ass touched shrimp start rolling in)
Booger sugar! Totally stealing that.
It would have been funny to walk up at just the right time and see you two laying on the carpet underneath this thing. Jason looked so comfortable.
I honestly love the look of this. Looks like a proper coupe, almost. I may be in the market by the time these come out. Count me in!
Is it me or is it weird that that the Autopian plies it’s trade in their beaters and offers opinions on cars they won’t but until they are rusted out hulks…
Def weird.
I’d love for Toyota to take this architecture and design language, and build a next-gen MR2 coupe with similar drag coefficient and smaller frontal area, 2 seats, with a target weight of under 2,500 lbs. 80+ mpg is possible in a car that can accelerate like a Ferrari. And by sharing components with the Prius, it could keep cost down. Give it a frunk and it would be very useful.
If they made such an updated MR2, I think they could include all the hybrid aspects of the Prius but tune it for maximum performance, and still get at least 40mpg, probably a lot more.
I’m pretty sure that’s what you had in mind, but want to be clear.
Such a car would be both my favorite toy and my daily commuter. I’ll take mine in red.
My line of thinking is to tune the ICE for maximum efficiency, and get the power/acceleration from as powerful of an electric drive system as can be fit. Set the gearing for slightly under whatever flat ground top speed the ICE could sustain(so that there’s always a few horsepower to recharge the battery), which if you go with some very slippery aero, you could do a lot with even only 60 horsepower. 130-ish mph would be plenty, maybe more would be possible. Depends on what the ICE of the new Prius puts out.
They should target 0-60 mph acceleration in well under 4 seconds, and a price point in the sub $30k range.
It should be a fun, reliable, inexpensive daily driver that is also competent on a race track or carving up canyons, that is as efficient and as inexpensive to run as possible. High top speed is not a priority, but the more the merrier, and it should be reached by reducing drag instead of increasing continuous power. Peak power will accelerate it to that speed, so it doesn’t need to be sustained for long. This way, ultimate efficiency isn’t compromised for performance that will rarely be used.
“They should target 0-60 mph acceleration in well under 4 seconds, and a price point in the sub $30k range.”
Stop talking like that, you’re making my pants rise. 🙂
Yeah I never thought I would actually like a Prius, but this one I do.
The rear end is a giant Kamm tail, and appears to be a well-executed one at that.
The rear hidden door handle is also a way to cut drag. The front door handle likely induces more turbulence than the rear. I wish they’d have had a similar handle for the front, much like the 1st generation production Ford Probes did.
The large joint on the windshield wiper seems as if it was designed to minimize the pressure differential of the air as it moves over the windshield.
I really like the smooth transition from windshield to roof.
Putting the coil springs more inboard also keeps them away from the turbulence generated by the rotating wheels and the airflow on the underside of the car.
I predict that when the drag coefficient is actually known, that it will be a 0.20.
I like this design. There are very few modern cars that I can say this about. If I had the need and budget to justify a new car purchase, the 2023 Prius Prime would be toward the top of my list, in competition with the Tesla Model 3 Performance or the Mazda MX-5. I find the new car landscape rather bleak, if you can’t tell, and this new Prius is one of the bright spots.
I had to go look up Kamm tail. Interesting.
I was aware of the effect but didnt know if it could be made to well.
And this might explain why i’ve seen aero shape charts that give wildly different drag coefficients for the chopped sphere shape.
My bad
Should be …didnt know it could be made to be efficient
I think your assessment is pretty accurate, but I think I would rather trade proper door handles on all four that I could count on after an ice storm over aerodynamic efficiency. Especially as most commuter cars barely travel at speed where you could even feel a breeze. ‘Gas-honk-brake’ really doesn’t need such an extremely low CD value.
Even this current ‘air curtain’ trend is pretty stupid for most use cases as in northern areas they are just clogged with winter sludge. Much as the question begs asking, how many Jeep owners go offroad? How many drivers are regularly hypermiling on the highway? It’s just dumb specsmanship at some point.
Maybe remove a bunch of stupid toys or oversized wheels and tires from the car to reduce mass and gain efficiencies that way? Oh, wait, marketing will never sign off.
How many ice storms to make it matter? A couple days a year? Maybe?
One is enough, when you’re late for work and you can’t open the door to your car. Believe me.
The vast majority of my commute is highway miles, and I can think of several co-workers who come from farther out and do a lot more than me. Highway cruising is the type of driving where the driver has the least control over efficiency—the best you can really do is pick a speed, set the cruise control, and wait for your exit to show up. It’s also the type of driving where aerodynamics have the greatest effect on efficiency.
“Highway cruising is the type of driving where the driver has the least control over efficiency—the best you can really do is pick a speed, set the cruise control, and wait for your exit to show up.”
That’s not quite true. The driver can also choose a ride that favors MPG over superfluous performance, weight, size or drag inducing styling.
For example solo commuters can choose a Prius for the daily grind vs a V8 powered F150 that’s otherwise never used to tow or haul.
From the way the rear door curves over the rear fender, I don’t see a good place to put a door handle on the door skin itself.
FWIW – The fuel tank location was never really the problem, it was the filler location/design.
Complex articulating wiper arms must be extra fun in icy weather.
It was on the Grand Cherokee ZJ!
That’s why they covered the articulating mechanism in plastic. It’s unlikely to ice up any more than any other wiper setup.