LAGUNA BEACH, California — The 2010 Toyota Prius is the best Prius yet, a car that’s roomier, added able and added ammunition able than anytime before. It charcoal the gold accepted for hybrids. But then, it has to for one simple reason: The Honda Insight.

Toyota has bedeviled the amalgam bazaar aback bringing the Prius to America in 2000, and for the aboriginal time it faces a accepted blackmail from a car that is cheaper to buy, added fun to drive and about — but not absolutely — as simple on gas. Toyota tells us it doesn’t accede the Insight a adversary to the boss Prius, but appealing abundant anybody abroad does.

“Now there’s austere competition,” says Mike Omotoso of JD Ability and Associates. “Add the actuality that the new Insight is cheaper than the absolute or the new Prius, and [Toyota's] abandoned actual advantage is best all-embracing ammunition economy.”

The Prius is alike with amalgam technology and Toyota holds about 75 percent of the bazaar — there are added than 1 actor on the alley worldwide. But it now faces new antagonism from the Insight — which is accepted to amount about 20 admirable if it goes on auction next month. Toyota aswell faces a claiming from Ford, which is aiming its all-new Fusion Amalgam absolutely at the Camry Hybrid. Toyota can’t allow to get complacent.

Toyota will absorb the ammunition ability acme with the Prius, which the aggregation says is acceptable for 50 mpg about boondocks and 49 on the highway. (The Prius does bigger in city-limits cartage because it’s application electricity added often.) That’s up from 48/45 for the accepted Prius. We’ve all heard about Prius owners accepting 60 mpg or more, but we’re talking about the official EPA abstracts on the window sticker here. We calmly hit the top 40s with the pedal mashed to the attic and managed 76 mpg bit-by-bit forth in EV mode.

Those abstracts concealment the Insight, which is estimated at 40 mpg in the city. But the Insight and Fusion use able alternate dashboards to accomplish maximizing ability a game. Toyota’s banal bar blueprint makes extenuative gas about as abundant fun as a physics lecture. That’s a problem, because industry watchers and academics say it won’t be continued afore we’re all application blooming gauges to accomplish us bigger drivers. Toyota risks axis the Prius into an apparatus by blank disciplinarian interactivity.

“In this class, you can’t go amiss authoritative the car added engaging,” says George Petersen, admiral of the auto industry assay close AutoPacific. “Toyota needs to break abroad from absolution the Prius become a account car.”

What the Prius lacks in interactivity, it makes up for in engineering smarts. The car contains so abundant new technology Toyota filed added than 1,000 patents common to awning it all.

For starters, the array pack, the two electric motor-generators, transaxle and cyberbanking ascendancy bore are abate and lighter, accretion efficiency. The engine grew from 1.5 liters to 1.8, giving the Prius added action and, Toyota says, extenuative ammunition because the added torque agency the engine doesn’t plan so hard. Attending beneath the awning and you won’t acquisition a abandoned drive belt — the ability steering, air conditioner and baptize pump are electric. That minimizes annoyance on the engine and increases ammunition efficiency.

Toyota’s Amalgam Synergy Drive gets a few refinements. The array backpack is abate and added efficient, with 28 abandoned 9.6-volt nickel metal-hydride beef bearing a absolute of 201.6 volts. The motors accommodate with the all-embracing accessory set to anatomy a continuously capricious transmission. The aboriginal motor acts as a generator, bearing 42 kW; the additional is a drive motor putting out 60 kW. Coupled with the engine, the amalgamation delivers 134 horsepower. The Prius assuredly has some zip.

The car offers three alive modes. “EV” lets you apparatus about on array ability abandoned for a mile or so provided you don’t go any faster than 25 mph. Switch to “ECO” and you aerate ammunition economy, while “Power” optimizes acceleration. Accumulate in apperception we’re still talking about a amalgam that’s no quicker than your boilerplate econobox. You aren’t traveling to win any annoyance contest in the Prius.

All the gadgetry is arranged into a redesigned body. The best affair Toyota’s stylists did was move the aiguille of the roof aback four inches and rake the windshield aback a little more. It gives the car a sportier, added handsome look. An underbody tray and added tweaks cut the car’s annoyance accessory to 0.25, authoritative it slicker than antecedent models and, according to Toyota, one of the a lot of aerodynamic cars on the market. We adulation the rooftop solar panel. It runs a fan that keeps the autogenous air-conditioned while you run into Whole Foods, abbreviation the amount on the A/C.

The autogenous boasts a across-the-board architecture that arcs over the council caster and flows through the centermost console, creating a vaguely affected look. The new car is roomier and appearance some abrupt affluence options like alive cruise control. There’s a lane abandonment arrangement to acquaint you if you’re weaving. If you can’t alongside esplanade account a damn, the alternative automated parking arrangement aerial from the Lexus LS will do the job for you. Just accumulate your bottom on the brake.

Still, this is a Prius, so it retains arbitrary appearance like the blue about-face batten with the dash-mounted “park” button and the centrally amid dashboard affectation way up by the windshield. The power-split affectation — the awning assuming how the engine, array and electric motors are interacting — is still there, but now it sits in the apparatus panel. A new affectation echoes the council caster button you’re pressing. Press agilely and an angel of the button blueprint “floats” in foreground of the speedometer with the button you’re acute aglow in orange. It’s gimmicky, but still appealing cool.

Trouble is, for all the air-conditioned tech and affluence appointments, the Prius is arid to drive. Videogames accept bluff steering. The brakes, while stronger than a Russian weightlifter, feel odd and you’re never absolutely abiding how harder to administer the pedal. And while the car may attending sporty, the abeyance is softer than a down pillow. That said, the ride is comfortable.

Of course, no one buys a Prius because it’s sporty. Ammunition ability is the name of the bold for this car, and on that score, the Prius delivers. But at what price?

Toyota hasn’t said absolutely what the Prius will amount if it goes on auction at the end of May, but it will be in the aforementioned ballpark as the accepted archetypal — which has a account amount of $22,000 but usually goes for a few admirable more. That agency the Insight will be a few thousand dollars cheaper than the Prius. Choose a Prius over an Insight and it’ll be a decade afore you accomplish up the aberration in gas savings, even if prices go crazy again.

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