2023 Toyota Prius Hybrid First Look: Hold On, This Is a Prius? (PHOTO)

Maybe it’s time to stop thinking of the iconic hybrid as boring, slow, and cheap.

Talk about your ugly duckling becoming a swan. The 2023 Toyota Prius hybrid has undergone the kind of transformation automakers often promise but rarely deliver when slapping an “all-new” label on a long-running model. But, dang! The Prius became a household name over two decades ago because of its efficiency and affordability-never, never, ever because of its looks-so consider us stunned it is now a stunner.

While the original Prius made headlines 22 years ago when it first went on sale and celebrities hoping to make an environmental statement pulled them up to red carpets, fashionability largely eluded the hybrid’s first four generations. The fifth-generation Prius, by contrast, is sleek and modern, its windswept shape managing to look fast and efficient; it also sits atop the newest-generation TNGA modular platform. Toyota also has found a way to increase the hybrid system’s power and fuel economy. If Toyota were to say the Prius also costs less than before, we might dismiss the whole thing as a fever dream. But pricing won’t be announced until later this year, and a price drop is unlikely.

Coming up with a new Prius is no easy task, especially given the awkward business position Toyota’s found itself in as competitors continue to beat it-badly-to the rapidly popularizing fully electric vehicle segment. “The weight of the Prius name is heavy. It carries with it the identity of an entire category of vehicle powertrain,” said Toyota general manager Dave Christ of an approach to efficiency fast falling out of fashion among cost- and environmentally conscious buyers. “We’re confident the all-new 2023 Prius and Prius Prime will continue this important legacy.”