Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid Economy & Emissions

The Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid will cost from 'Under £30k'

Toyota has revealed that the Prius Plug-in will average 134.5mpg, emit 49g/km and cost under £35k in the UK.

If you’re going to pay through the nose for a hybrid or electric car, probably the only route you should choose is a plug-in hybrid or a range-extender. And if you want to go the plug-in hybrid route you will now be able to get the Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid in the UK, and relieve the British taxpayer of £5k in the process.

The Toyota Prius Plug-in goes on sale in the summer and Toyota has now revealed a few more facts and figures to tempt potential buyers, including economy, emissions and price.

Toyota say the Prius plug-in will cost ‘Under £30k’ in the UK (although that’s after the taxpayer bribe of £5k, so the list price of the Prius plug-in is actually ‘Under £35k’) which is £1k less than Toyota told us the Prius Plug-in would cost back in September, average 134.5mpg and have average emissions of 49g/km. All of which you need to take with a pinch of salt, as do you the claimed EV range of 15.5 miles.

The official economy and emissions figures are based on an assumed split of motoring on and off electric, and if you only ever use the Prius plug-in for a couple of miles to work and back you’ll probably never buy fuel. In the real world you’ll get the same mpg as a regular Prius once the charge has gone, which in mixed motoring is somewhere in the mid 40s.

As for emissions, the 49g/km is based on the same average split of EV and engine running, and is baseless in any case. Electricity use is reckoned to create an average of 75g/km CO2 at the point of generation, even of it’s zero at the point of use, so the figure of 49g/km is disingenuous however you look at it. That’s not Toyota’s fault, it’s the way the tests are conducted.

But if you’re comfortably off and need something that’s economical for short urban journeys – or you want to polish your green halo – then the Prius Plug-in will be a great transport option, just as long as you never try to factor cost benefits in to the equation.

And the Toyota Prius plug-in should at least make a proper dent in the taxpayer bribe fund for EVs, and then maybe the nonsense of paying well-off car buyers to polish their green halo will end.