Prius Awarded 2024 MotorTrend Car of the Year

Twenty years ago, MotorTrend awarded the 2004 Prius their Car of the Year award. This was the 2nd generation model featuring the 4-door hatchback design that became a runaway sales success. It was driven by everyone from recent college graduates to Hollywood celebrities and is still probably the model most people think of when they hear the name “Prius.” The 2023 Prius has had its most dramatic redesign since the 2024 model, and Valley Hi Toyota is happy to report that Motor Trend has again bestowed their highest honor on Toyota’s most efficient model.

Back in 2004, the Prius was recognized as the hybrid car. Now Hybrids come in all shapes and sizes, particularly within the Toyota model lineup. So how does the Prius stand out? Most noticeably, they made it beautiful. Prius models have always been efficient, practical, and distinctive, but the term “beautiful” never really applied. That has been completely turned around, and the Prius is now the sleekest compact car on the market and possibly the most attractive model in Toyota’s showroom. Toyota applied the time-tested technique of making it longer, lower, and wider. The front is a superbly executed version of Toyota’s new sedan design language. The steep windshield and subsequent uninterrupted roofline make the car appear as though it will cut through the air without the air even noticing. 

“Toyota has fundamentally redefined the essence of a Prius with its new model, which represents a crowning achievement in its evolution,” said MotorTrend Group head of editorial Ed Loh. “The Prius succeeded in capturing the hearts and minds of MotorTrend judges by offering an undeniably attractive and engaging car—all while upholding its hallmark traits of efficiency, safety, and affordability. In an automotive landscape grappling with a scarcity of affordable EV options and inadequate charging infrastructure in the U.S., Toyota made the Prius hybrid the right car for this moment and rightfully earned MotorTrend’s 2024 Car of the Year award in the process.”

Motor Trend judges its “of the year” candidates not against each other but how they stand out in their competitive class. The cars are evaluated by the following six criteria:

• Advancement in Design
• Efficiency
• Engineering Excellence
• Performance of Intended Function
• Safety
• Value

Great design is only the beginning, as the Prius is also more powerful and more fun to drive than ever before. The drivetrain features a larger and more powerful 2.0-liter inline-4 engine that produces 150 hp vs the previous model’s 97 hp. It is combined with a 111-hp motor, while AWD versions, which can be had at every model trim, add a 40-hp motor at the rear. 

The Prime Plug-in hybrid model has a more powerful 161-hp front motor which brings total system power to 220 horsepower. The Prime battery pack bumps up from .91 kWh in the standard Prius to 13.6 kWh, which enables an EV-only range of up to 45 miles, which is more than the daily commute for most drivers. The Prime can be plugged into a normal household socket and be charged from empty to full in 12 hours. Once in hybrid mode, the model is rated at 57 combined mpg.

The interior was fully redesigned as well. The compact driver’s information display is positioned above the steering wheel, where it combines the clarity of a digital gauge cluster with the positioning of a head-up display. The standard infotainment display is 8 inches growing to 12.3 inches mid-way up the model hierarchy. Plenty of physical controls remain for commonly used functions. The Prius is 2 inches lower than its predecessor but only loses one inch of headroom. The model retains its 4-door hatch confirmation for easy access to the cargo area.

The new Prius comes standard with Toyota Safety Sense 3.0 and has earned an Insurance Institute Highway Safety (IIHS) Top Safety Pick + rating, their highest. The NHTSA has not yet tested the new Prius, but it’s IIHS results and the fact that previous models have received their 5-star overall rating bodes well.

Says one editor: “This is the first Prius I’ve driven that I didn’t want to forget about the moment I climbed out of it. This new car looks so sharp, so cool, so interesting, I’m happy about driving it before I ever roll forward a single foot.” And Motor some up its story thusly: “It’s more attractive, more efficient, better to drive, and just as affordable as before. It’s unquestionably our 2024 Car of the Year.”

If you are considering a compact car, the Prius absolutely has to be at the top of your list, and you will find them here at Valley Hi Toyota.

Tags: hybrid, JD Power, Prius, Satisfaction, SSI, Toyota
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