Toyota: Strut your stuff around town

Toyota's Prius i-Tech is on the cutting edge with solar-powered air-con plus electric and petrol engines. Photo / Supplied

Toyota's Prius is the latest model subject to a recall, this time for brake problems in hybrid cars. The issue relates to "feel" in the electrically managed system rather than braking performance, and requires a software fix standard to cars produced from January.

Considering the tricky tech packed into Prius, you might think a software glitch was only a matter of time, especially in the i-Tech variant I drove.

Press the start button, and the sole sign she's poised to go is a "ready" light on the dash-top info panel. The petrol engine only fires when needed, and that's less often than before - at higher speeds, to boost acceleration, when the system is cold or there's no battery power.

Mind you, the battery rarely runs down. Lifting the throttle charges it via deceleration, as does braking, so the charge stays high in normal driving.

As well as a facelift this latest Prius gets a bigger, more powerful 1.8-litre petrol engine, and it feels more assured on the open road or steeper uphill gradients, where its predecessor ran out of breath.

The smaller but more powerful electric motor is less distracted by cabin duties in this i-Tech, which uses solar energy to boost normally power-draining functions like the climate-control air con.

Drive gently and she'll run silently on electricity alone at up to 50kph - producing no noxious emissions or sound - over that and the petrol motor cuts in.

That means this car is at its best around town.

I have a hilly, semi-rural commute - the terrain on which it's least at home. Nevertheless we averaged 4.7l/100km for the duration despite minimal urban running. Could a diesel match it? Sure, though even the cleanest diesel produces noise and emissions round town. But not Prius.

Mind you it isn't the most incisive handler on the open road, though it did better than expected. Nicely balanced with precise steering, albeit with early tyre whine on briskly taken bends. Meanwhile, far from lacking in feel the brakes on this car were almost over-strong.

As for the cabin, the hard plastics at least look good. The touch screen with satnav is easy to navigate, there are plenty of cubbies, and even heated seats plus tech goodies such cruise with auto following distance and auto headlights.

You pay for all that though, with this $62,090 i-Tech $13,600 more than the standard Prius.

Knockers may point to the fact that building - and disposing of - Prius and its batteries rather offsets its environmentally friendly performance. But that ignores the fact no technology arrives at the peak of its effectiveness. The first petrol cars weren't as good as today's. What if early nay-sayers had said: "it's not perfect, let's drop it"?

Prius and the arriving new wave of plug-in and pure electric cars are not perfect either, but they are a step on the way to a brighter, cleaner future. Meanwhile, this one's also a decent proposition as a real-world car.

TOYOTA PRIUS

We like
Solar-powered roof, lots of tech, virtually emissions and fuel-free around town

We don't like
Price of i-Tech, over-sudden brakes take getting used to

Powertrain
1.8-litre in-line four-cylinder petrol, 73kW at 5200rpm and 142Nm at 4000rpm, plus electric engine 60kW and 207Nm - total system output 100kW; CVT auto drives front wheels

Performance
0-100km/h not available, 3.9l/100km (claimed)

Safety
Seven airbags, ABS brakes, stability and traction control, rear park camera

What it's got
Solar panels power auto air con, dynamic radar cruise control, satnav, Bluetooth, MP3 CD, head-up display, keyless start and much more

Vital stats
4460mm-long, 445 to 1120-litre boot, 45-litre tank