Yahoo Autos The 2023 Toyota Prius's AWD System Is More Hybrid Supercar Than Economy Car
The new Prius looks awesome. It's a strong departure from the awkward, mean-faced design of the last-gen car, plus it's quicker and more efficient than ever before. But the coolest part of the Prius isn't its looks or efficiency. It's the way Toyota's managed to integrate a trick hybrid all-wheel-drive system.
Most cheap economy cars equipped with all-wheel-drive have a primitive (but still effective) way to get power to all four wheels. Peek underneath your average RAV4 or CR-V and you'll see a transmission or transfer case sending power to the front wheels through a pair of half-shafts and a driveshaft that connects to a differential out back, which gets power to the rear wheels. It's a method that's worked well for decades, but it adds weight and results in parasitic losses for the driveline, compounding inefficiency.
Mid-engine supercar manufacturers have used hybrid tech to work their way around this method of power distribution. Instead of using a driveshaft and an extra differential to get power to the front wheels, electric motors are placed up front to spin the tires, adding power and traction without having to carve out space in the unibody for extra drivetrain components. It's this kind of thinking that's led to mind-blowing performance from cars like the Porsche 918 Spyder, Acura NSX, and Ferrari SF90 Stradale.
The Prius has been using a similar kind of all-wheel-drive system since 2019, except reversed. In the AWD-equipped Prius, thrust from the main power source, the combustion engine and primary electric motor, send torque solely to the front wheels. But instead of using a transfer case, a driveshaft, and a differential to get power to the rear wheels, the Prius uses an independent second electric motor to spin the tires out back.
The 2023 Prius's electric motor isn't there to help set lap records or defeat dragsters off the line, of course. Toyota says it's there to promote stability and provide extra traction. The company claims the rear motor can help to "suppress front wheel slip during off-the-line starts" and "enhance cornering agility by helping to reduce understeer," which seems pretty performance-oriented to us. Did we mention optioning AWD cuts the 0-60 time from 7.2 seconds to 7 seconds flat?
Selecting all-wheel-drive on the 2023 Prius has its downsides, of course. It's a $1400 premium over front-wheel-drive models, and cuts efficiency by up to 3 mpg combined, according to Toyota. So we wouldn't recommend adding it unless you actually need the sliver of extra performance or live in a snowy environment.
So the next time you see an all-wheel-drive Prius, now you know: Its AWD system is cooler than most.
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