By Lee Nian Tjoe

Toyota is so determined that its new Prius gets noticed that it plastered its test car with stickers to cover almost every centimetre of painted metal except the bonnet and boot.

With the third-generation model looking so much like the outgoing one, especially its rear, you can almost understand its anxiety to get noticed.

On one side of the car, the decals tell us in XXL font size that the Prius is capable of covering 25.6km on a single litre of petrol.

Mistaking that to be a challenge, I spent the first kilometres of the test drive trying to realise the claimed 25.6km/L... and failed (should have turned off the airconditioning!).

Over a mix of highway and city driving, the trip computer shows that I managed just under 20km/L, which is great for a 1.8-litre car.

While the previous two generations of Prius had 1.5-litre engines, the new one has a 1.8, putting it in the large-car COE category class.

With the increased displacement comes more power, 22bhp up on the old car's 76bhp. The electric motor is also more powerful despite being smaller than the one in the old Prius.

Combined with the combustion engine, the powertrain has a total output of 134bhp, up from 112bhp before.

It is also half a second quicker to get to 100kmh from rest than the previous Prius. Incredibly, the new car claims to be more frugal despite being heavier than its predecessor.

Chances are that these numbers would not matter too much to the Prius buyer/owner. Any car for Prius-money will be quicker and more powerful. And unless you clock stupendous mileage, it is unlikely that fuel savings will offset the premium you pay over a Corolla Altis in a realistic way (interestingly, the eco- friendly Prius is priced the same as the much less eco-friendly Fortuner SUV).

The Prius' biggest draw, as it was with its predecessor, is the technological and environment statement it projects.

Short of levitating like cars do in The Jetsons, the Prius is as cool as modern motoring gets. The cabin looks a little spaceship-like with a centre console that seems to have come off the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise. There is a bit of resemblance to the Honda Civic about the dash design, but only just.

Buttons on the steering wheel are touch-sensitive and work like the Apple iPod's interface. They manipulate not just the music selection but also the climate control. Also new is the head-up display that is projected onto the windscreen. It is a feature found on the BMW M5, Corvette and jet fighters - how cool is that?

Keeping with Toyota's hybrid tradition, the dash display throws up a host of information including where the wheels are getting their animation from: The hybrid system constantly varies between the petrol engine and electric motor or both at the same time to give the optimum balance of performance and efficiency.

So seamless is the transition that the display is perhaps the only way to tell.

The coolest bit about the Prius has to be how un-car like it feels behind the wheel. In pure electric mode, the cabin is absolutely silent, save for the sound of the air-con compressor kicking in and your rumbling stomach.

Even when the engine is running, the noise level is almost unbelievably low, giving the family car an almost Lexus-like quality.

It is eerily quiet outside too. More than once, pedestrians react in surprise when the car zips by. Then again, it may just be those stickers.

stlife@sph.com.sg

The writer is the editor of Torque published by SPH Magazines.

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