Toyota Prius - MPG, emissions & running costs

The Toyota Prius Plug-in’s economy stats are impressive. They’ll make a big difference for longer-distance drivers, but it’s less pronounced around town.

Electric range, battery life and charge time

Despite a small battery of only 13.6kWh capacity, impressive aerodynamic efficiency allows for a fairly good electric range. Given that it’s a PHEV, you’ll want to maximise fuel economy by using this as much as possible, but once the engine kicks in, it should still be an economical car – we saw more than 80mpg even when the car’s battery was totally depleted. 

Toyota’s know-how when it comes to producing an efficient hybrid powertrain has paid dividends, because that’s better than any other PHEV we’ve tried with a flat power pack. Charge every day and use electricity for your commute and you should see a higher figure, while there’s even a ‘Predictive Efficient Drive’ system that learns your route to work and optimises the powertrain for economy.

The regenerative braking system comprises three modes – gentle, medium and strong – and while it doesn’t quite allow for one-pedal driving, up to 80 per cent deceleration is served up in the ‘strong’ mode. 

It takes about four hours to top up the battery on a home charger, because the on-board 3.5kW charger isn’t fast – but for overnight plug-ins, that doesn’t matter a huge amount.

Tax 

Company car tax bills are inexpensive, thanks to low CO2 emissions of 17g/km and plug-in hybrid status. Standard-rate taxpayers will fork out £638 to tax the Prius as a company car in the 2024/25 tax year – a couple of hundred pounds more than a similarly priced EV, but less than equivalent petrol models – while VED is £180 with both versions skirting under the £40,000 mark to avoid the expensive-car supplement.

Insurance

The insurance group of 31 is quite high, likely because previous versions are frequently used in cities and suffer low-speed accidents often. There’s also the cost of repair for the powertrain to consider.

Depreciation

Our experts predict that the Prius will retain around 58 per cent of its value after three years, which is good news for private buyers; the average car tends to be closer to the 45-50 per cent mark.

To get an accurate valuation for a specific model, check out our valuation tool..