Toyota gives its Prius hybrid model an aggressive makeover

Yahoo Finance autos reporter Pras Subramanian details Toyota's newest version of its Prius hybrid.

Video transcript

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- Toyota Motor is upgrading the Prius hybrid in 2023. Yahoo Finance senior autos reporter Pras Subramanian is here with the details on that. And Pras, is this something I should be excited about?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: You know, it looks surprisingly good. I think that's my first takeaway. I couldn't believe it when I saw it online. I said, this is the Prius? So they kind of got rid of that wedge-shaped weird sort of like flowy line. They made it a bit more angular, a bit more aggressive. Better colors, too. So this car has been around for over 20 years, believe it or not, and Toyota is kind of betting they're going to they're going to be around for more. Three new powertrains, two hybrid one plug-in. You know they're kind of seeing that the plug-in hybrid, or the hybrid world, is still going to be around for a while. We saw that yesterday with the data from Consumer Reports with customers really excited about them and the high levels of reliability.

So you know Toyota is sort of turning back the clock here because they sort of put a pause on their EV plans. They were going to invest big in this decade, but they actually are, according to Reuters, putting the brakes on that. They want to reevaluate what they're doing, maybe have a new EV platform that those cost a lot of money, but I think the Prius right now is a great way to keep the good times rolling. I mean, they sold almost 5 million of these globally in 20 years.

- Yes, it certainly has been a hit car for now for quite some time. And I agree with you, I do like the-- At first you know it was interesting, I thought it looked very similar to what we've seen in the past. But you sold me a little bit. It looks a little bit sleeker and--

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, look at that! I mean, yeah, I like it.

- All right, Pras. Thanks so much for breaking that down for us.