2012 Toyota Prius v review: 2012 Toyota Prius v

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2012 Toyota Prius v

7.7

2012 Toyota Prius v

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The Good

With its hybrid drive system, the <b>2012 Toyota Prius v</b> averages better than 40 mpg. Entune gives it useful app integration, with Pandora, OpenTable, and others.

The Bad

The drivetrain makes a tortured sound under heavy acceleration. The iPod integration did not work reliably with anything older than an iPhone 4.

The Bottom Line

Excellent fuel economy and a large, airy cabin make the 2012 Toyota Prius v a very practical choice for families, and new electronics give it a modern tech edge.

The 2012 Toyota Prius v, the minivan version of the Prius hatchback, serves as an excellent object lesson in the effects of drag on fuel economy. The Prius v, with its enhanced cargo space, weighs only 200 pounds more than the hatchback, but the drag coefficient changes from .25 to .29. And that means the Prius v ends up with 10 mpg less in fuel economy than its hatchback counterpart, even while using the same engine and hybrid system.

Maybe Toyota did not intend the Prius v to be a physics lesson, but the Prius has always appealed to the scientifically minded. Engineers would buy the car just for the power flow animation, which shows in real time when the engine or electric motor is driving the front wheels. Hypermilers learned just how to optimize fuel economy, while a cottage industry of modders made it possible to recharge the battery from the grid.

But the fact that the Prius v does not equal its sibling's fuel economy is no failure, as the car still averages over 40 mpg in real-world driving. And that is impressive when it can also seat five comfortably and fit a decent amount of cargo. Many nonhybrid cars boast 40 mpg on the highway these days, but that is not their average fuel economy and they don't have as much cabin space as the Prius v.

With the rear seats down, the Prius v boasts enough cargo space for a typical Costco run.

Placed side by side, the Prius v does not look much bigger than the Prius hatchback. Its roofline holds its height to the back of the car, which is where the extra cargo space comes in. But Toyota managed to create a more airy feeling in the cabin. A freestanding center console made the Prius v feel like a minivan. I wanted to take the very cushiony seats with me and install them in my living room.

CNET's review car was loaded, the top Five trim with the Advanced Technology package. Over the front and rear seats it had glass roof panes that unfortunately did not open. Options included adaptive cruise control and automatic parking. With the former, I drove for miles down the freeway without the need to touch gas pedal or brake, just steering and enjoying the scenery.

The automatic parking was not nearly as successful. This is the same system Toyota originally launched in the Lexus LS 460. It didn't work then and it doesn't work now. Each time I tried it, the parking frame overlaid on the rearview camera showed red, no matter how much I tried to adjust it. It needs to turn blue for the system to work. Ford deployed a much better version of this system, which requires no onscreen tinkering, in the Focus.

Using the same 1.8-liter engine with electric motor assist as the hatchback, the Prius v did not feel underpowered. The drive systems in each car produce a net 134 horsepower, and Toyota notes a 0-to-60-mph time of 10.4 seconds, almost a second slower than the hatchback. Most of my starts were on the slow side, the hybrid system encouraging moderate driving.

But when faced with a series of steep hills in San Francisco or coastal mountains immediately to the south, I put it in power mode and the increased throttle sensitivity whipped up all its horses with a half push on the accelerator. It is no muscle car, but the readiness of the power inspired confidence. Jamming down the accelerator for a passing maneuver made the engine emit an eerie moan, in counterpoint to the pleasant turbine whir of the generator when braking.

Toyota places the drive-mode buttons on the console, within easy reach of the driver.

The power mode, activated from a button on the console, made a big performance difference, but it was less so for the Eco mode. The throttle already felt very detuned in normal drive mode, and Eco did not make it much worse. However, I could definitely feel the air from the climate control system go from gust to breath when I hit the Eco button.

There is also a button for EV mode, but as soon as the car got to 30 mph, it deactivated of its own accord. It is kind of like a more innocuous version of the bus from the movie "Speed." What impressed me was the Prius v's ability to shut down its engine at higher speeds. While cruising at 40 mph, the car would switch to electric drive as long as I went extremely light on the accelerator.

The ride quality of the Prius v is similar to that of the hatchback Prius. I wouldn't call it bad, but it felt like the car was designed more to optimize efficiency than to coddle the passengers. I wouldn't want to drive it over 20 miles of bad road, but it is perfectly suitable for the typical byways of city and suburb.

Like the 2012 Toyota Camry I reviewed recently, the Prius v gets JBL's new GreenEdge audio system. Designed for efficiency, this system is supposed to use less power but still deliver robust sound, making it more appropriate for the Prius v than for the Camry. But the version in the Prius v only has eight speakers, two less than in the Camry.

I found this system to have nice quality; it was able to play some of my favorite songs with good definition. I found one track particularly stunning, as it led with a vocal from one side, neatly staged by the audio system, before the music swelled from both left and right channels. I fed the system a track with a little more bass, but it wasn't as strong as I had hoped, coming through more like a tap on the shoulder than a punch in the chest.

The top head unit incorporates a navigation system with maps stored on hard drive, and traffic and other data brought in through satellite.

For the Prius v and the new Camry, Toyota changed up its head unit offerings, and this car had the top available. That meant a 6.1-inch touch screen showing the navigation system with maps stored on a hard drive. The audio sources are well-rounded, although Toyota does not make room available on the hard drive for music.

One problem I found in the Prius v that I'd earlier encountered in the Camry was that the USB port did not want to work with an iPhone 3GS, but had no trouble recognizing an iPhone 4. That is a serious backward-compatibility problem. With older iPhones and Android phones the system could play music through streaming Bluetooth audio, but the interface is not quite as good.

Toyota greatly improved the voice command system for the Prius v, and I found it useful not only for entering addresses in the navigation system while under way, but also for requesting music from a USB drive by artist and album name. This voice command system also did an excellent job of recognizing names from my paired phone's contact list when I wanted to call someone.

The biggest advance in the Prius v was Toyota's Entune system with its new app integration. As my iPhone 3GS would not connect with the car, I was largely out of luck when it came to this system, as iPhones must have a cabled connection. Android phones can connect through Bluetooth. With either, the phone becomes a data conduit for a selection of apps Toyota built into the head unit.

Brian Cooley looks at Toyota's Entune system

The app selection is good, as it includes OpenTable, Pandora, MovieTickets.com, and iHeartRadio. But the inclusion of Bing as the local search engine smacks more of a business deal than using the best available technology. In testing a Google search on an Android phone versus the Bing search through Entune, the phone returned its results much faster.

The other apps work just as well through Entune as they do on a phone. The Pandora interface was very good, letting me select stations and give songs a thumbs-up or thumbs-down as they played. It even showed album art. iHeartRadio brings in Internet radio stations from all over the country, useful for expanding one's musical horizons. I also liked the fact that iHeartRadio had some preset genre stations, so I didn't have to go looking for a specific station from all the radio markets in the country.

As this was Toyota's high-end head unit, it brought in weather, traffic, gas prices, and other information through a satellite data feed. This information was generally available seconds after I requested it through the interface. Toyota's lesser head unit brings in this type of data through Entune, which will probably result in a little more wait time as it comes through the phone's data pipe.

In sum
Its hybrid system may no longer have the edge over some newer entrants, but other efficiency engineering in the 2012 Toyota Prius v helps it attain really excellent real-world fuel economy. The conventional suspension distracts from the high-tech nature of this car's performance components.

Toyota steps out on the edge a bit with the cabin tech, using its Entune system to push app integration. Still in an early phase, Entune shows a lot of promise. The new voice command system is also a very useful update to the car's electronics. While the adaptive cruise control proved very useful, Toyota really needs to reengineer the automatic parking system.

The real win for the Prius v is that it maintains very high fuel economy in a small minivan. Although it's only a five-seater in the U.S. market, many will appreciate the more open feel of the cabin and the large cargo area.