Toyota is not the only manufacturer to include a petrol-electric hybrid in its model range, but it is by far the most experienced. It has been selling cars (three generations of them now) with the Prius badge for more than a decade, and we have long since reached the point where the word "Prius" itself is used either as a shorthand term for a green lifestyle choice or - often by people who react testily to what I have just described - as an expression of contempt.Leaving that little disagreement aside, and ignoring for now the discussions on the actual environmental benefits of hybrids, I suggest that one of the most important but least discussed questions about the Prius is whether or not it is a car you would actually like to live with. And, for me anyway, it is.There really isn't much to dislike. In its latest form the Prius is good-looking, it has a tremendous amount of room for both front and rear passengers, it's quiet (to the point where you can't always tell just by listening whether the engine is running or has been switched off to allow the electric motor to take over), it's comfortable, it has a solid, high-quality feel to it, and on the whole it rides pretty well, though the 17" wheels and low-profile tyres fitted as standard to the range-topping T Spirit tested here make it more fidgety over bumps than it needs to be.I was even less impressed by them when trying to drive the Prius on snow and ice (fortunately I had access to another, more sensibly-shod car when the conditions were at their worst), but that's a criticism of low-profile tyres in general. A specific gripe about the Prius is that the visibility is unacceptably poor.This is partly because the rear window is in fact two windows: a large, steeply-sloping one not well covered by the rear wiper, and below it, after a view-blocking horizontal strip, a smaller, vertical one which has no wiper at all and is very quickly covered by rain, or dirt, or in some cases both.No manufacturer has ever been able to make a sensible job of this layout (assuming, as I like to do, that the purpose of having rear windows is to be able to see through them), and I suspect that none ever will, but there is at least an excuse in that it is dictated by a desire to make the back of the car as aerodynamically efficient as possible.And you have to give Toyota credit for making that lower window reasonably large, so that it does improve visibility when it isn't wet or mucky. The lack of rear side glass is just silly, though, as are the large blind spots created by the huge windscreen pillars (and not improved much by the small triangular windows mounted in them).Still, on balance things are looking pretty good. But you want to know about things like fuel economy and CO2 emissions, don't you? Okay. According to the results of the official EU test, the Prius has combined economy of 70.6mpg and emissions of 92g/km, or 72.4mpg and 89g/km respectively if you go for the entry-level T3.UK taxation is based on those official CO2 figures, so in any form the Prius is exempt from VED no matter how much of the stuff you actually pump out. On the other hand, you don't get to pay for less petrol than you use - which is perhaps a pity - so I'm sorry to have to report that I didn't get anywhere near 70mpg during this test.On the other hand, I didn't expect to. What I did do, on one tankful, was achieve mpg in the mid-50s on a long motorway run, and then maintain it while driving through London, largely because the Prius was operating almost entirely as an electric-only vehicle during that period even when I didn't specifically ask it to (though you can do that by pressing an EV mode button). For that part of the test the trip computer told me I was averaging 55.9mpg; I measured it as 55.2mpg, which is close enough for me to think that both figures are near to the truth.I have done better than 55 point something mpg on motorways in conventional diesel cars of similar size, but I doubt that any of them could have continued at that low level of fuel usage in the streets of the capital. This did not define my enjoyment of the Prius, but it certainly didn't harm it either. Engine 1798 cc, 4 cylinders Power 136 bhp @5200 rpm Torque 105 ib/ft @4000 rpm Transmission 1 speed auto Fuel/CO2 70.6 mpg / 92 g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 10.4sec Top speed 112 mph Price From £23306.00 approx Release date 01/07/2009
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