I’m going to be honest with you: I didn’t really think I was going to give this car a decent review. It’s not because I’m actually hostile to Volkswagen or anything like that, but more that I just didn’t think I cared. And not just a normal sort of not caring, more like the kind of aggressive non-caring a petulant child feels while stuck in a long-term records storage facility where the only screen available was playing 1980s reruns of The McLaughlin Group, nonstop. I mean like a collapse on the floor and writhe around screaming “I DON’T CAAAAAARRRRRREEEEEE” sort of apathy. That was my attitude towards the Taos.
The reason for this is that I saw the Taos as the most baseline, default sort of vehicle you can get in America right now, a compact SUV with a four-cylinder inline turbo engine, four doors, four tires on wheels that are too big, and paradoxically overdone yet wildly forgettable styling. To make matters worse, the Taos was just part of the SUV/Crossover core of Volkswagen’s lineup, which seems to just be the same basic vehicle in a few barely variable sizes, with some minor styling and pricing differences.
I mean, look:
That’s just three sizes of SUV that are all sort of interchangeable styling-wise, and one electric version. It feels pretty sterile when you compare it with the freewheeling madness that was VW about a half-century earlier:
Of course, if you dig deeper, all the cars in that picture above share one of just three engine types. Still, it’s hard to ignore how much more character VW used to have, especially from a styling standpoint.
But that’s not really a fair criticism to VW; this is just modernity, and there’s no question that modern cars are vastly more efficient and safe and fast and comfortable and all that, even if they do seem to lack a good bit of charm. But the point is, I wasn’t pre-disposed to be particularly welcoming to the Taos.
But you know what happened? I ended up really liking the Taos! I didn’t want to, but it just kind of happened! And there were two extremely simple and basic things that broke through my car-snobby resolve to get me to appreciate this compact SUV on its own merits.
Cheap And Colorful
Those two things were, sort of metaphorically, both green. First, there was the color, which was a bright and bold shade of tree-frog green, and that caught my attention. I’m so deeply, powerfully sick of monochrome grayscale cars, that seeing something in such a vivid and unashamed color just felt good. The Taos’ color palette isn’t huge, but there are at least two good, real colors in there:
That green and that blue are both fantastic colors that the Taos looks great in. I hope nobody orders any of the gray ones, ever.
The other green thing was the more metaphorical one, green as in money, because the Taos is cheap. Well, cheap by modern standards, and yeah, the price tends to go up pretty quickly as you start adding stuff, but it’s worth noting that the Taos does start under $25,000. The one I tested – a pretty loaded Taos SEL 4MOTION one – comes in at around $36,000 or so, which isn’t that cheap anymore, but is still a hell of a lot less than the average price of a new car was in 2024, which was almost $48,000.
So, it’s a good color, and it’s not crazy expensive. That’s a pretty good start. But there’s really one overarching thing I discovered about my experience with this car that endeared it to me:
It’s Remarkably Free Of Bullshit
That’s right! This is a car that, compared to a lot of the new cars I’ve driven recently, feels incredibly free of modern car bullshit! And that’s odd, because it is most definitely a modern car, with all the modern car stuff, but somehow the whole experience of dealing with this modern car felt easy and pleasant. It’s not a car that really asks much of you, at all. It just does the basic stuff you need a car to do, and it does them pretty well.
Don’t get me wrong, though, there’s still some modern car bullshit to deal with, like the embarrassing insistence on making fake exhaust pipe tips:
…but if you’re using your car properly within about a year those things should be broken completely off thanks to repeatedly smacking into grocery carts to see if you can send them skittering into the cart return corral, like you were a soccer player kicking a penalty shot.
When I say this car is happily free of bullshit some of that has to do with basic dash controls and user interface stuff; after just coming out of a VW ID.Buzz, I was used to things like touch-sensitive volume controls and horribly modal power window switches, so when I got into the Taos and saw window switches like this:
…and volume control knobs and other controls like these:
…the end result was that everything just worked, and worked easily, without really any amount of thought required on my part, which is good, because requiring me to think often ends in disaster.
Sure, I played around with VW’s native UX a bit, noting that it allows for a pretty robust set of off-road instruments that, statistically, precisely zero people who buy this car will ever use or need:
More important than VW’s native UX is that the Taos had wireless Apple CarPlay (Android Auto is available, too) so I just used that, since, like every other living mammal I’ve met, I prefer to just use my phone’s OS for center-stack stuff like music and navigation and podcasts or whatever. Also, and I think this is an important thing to note, the Taos had the best, easiest, most trouble-free wireless charging system I’ve ever used on a modern car.
I’m not kidding – you’d think this should be the same on every car, but for far too many cars I’ve tested over the past couple years, I’ve found the wireless chargers to be finicky, unreliable things. [Ed Note: I totally agree; wireless charging in cars tends to suck! -DT]. A lot of them are just poorly designed or positioned, causing the phone to slide out or get flung to the floor when you’re driving a bit, um, spiritedly, and almost all of them have stopped charging seemingly at random, or if the phone shifts two picometers too far in any direction and the electron shells get misaligned or whatever dark magic is used to make wireless charging happen.
The point is wireless phone charging pads in cars almost always suck. But not the Taos’ charging pad! It just worked, every time, and I didn’t even have to be extra careful about positioning the phone! It just worked, and kept working! I was furtively glancing at it, always expecting it to stop charging and give me some cryptic apology on screen, but that never happened!
Oh, and look at this:
See that little hole up there? That’s right above the charging pad. As I do with any unknown hole I encounter, I shoved some fingers up in there and found it was blowing a steady stream of cold air right at the charging pad. Now, I’m not certain about this just yet (I did reach out to VW for confirmation) but I think this is a special vent designed to keep your phone from overheating on the charger in warm weather, something I’ve seen happen many, many times. That’s brilliant.
This is what I’m talking about: The car isn’t particularly revolutionary or even remarkable at anything, but it just does all the basics very well. Like the cargo area:
There aren’t lots of clever cubbies or ways to configure things, but what you do get is a pretty cavernous space with a fairly rectangular shape. You get about 25 cubic feet of space with the 4MOTION one, and about 28 with the FWD version. Fold the seat down and you have a nice 66 (FWD) or 60 (AWD) cubic feet of volume you can fill with your crap.
And, under the rear floor, look!
An actual spare tire! This is becoming less and less common, but I still like knowing that they’re not extinct yet.
In a lot of ways, the Taos just reminds me of what a Golf once was: a general-use, do-whatever car. Fit people, fit some stuff, move them around, don’t fall apart, make driving at least a little engaging, and boom, that’s all you need. The Taos feels pretty much like that, just with some silly SUV-ification slapped onto it, because, you know, it’s the style of the time, like an onion on your belt.
What’s It Like Inside?
I’ve always felt that Volkswagen has had a knack for making pleasant interiors. In fact, that’s why I was duped into buying the miserable VW Tiguan I have – the thing has been a sort of nightmare to own, but I’ll be damned if that interior isn’t a pleasant space to be in. The Taos follows this tradition quite well: It’s an airy interior, with a nice mix of light and dark upholstery, and the optional full-length moonroof is a delight.
It has a powered cover that can slide into place, but I don’t see why you’d ever want it unless there was a huge baboon or something laying on its stomach on your roof and you didn’t feel like staring at its genitals any longer. But how often does that happen? Twice a year?
The materials inside are better than you’d expect for an entry-level car, too. Look at these door cards, for example:
It’s a bold, active design with good armrests and a nice deep storage cubby. It doesn’t look or feel cheap at all! And, even better, all those little stitches are real, not those embarrassing molded-in stitches you’d find on an old Chevy Citation or something. Look close and you can see:
The seats are comfortable, too, including at the rear, which has a fold-down armrest with cupholders and a six-foot party sub/ski pass-through and vents and USB ports back there. It’s everything you need, nothing you don’t, and that’s just great.
How Is It To Drive?
I’m told the 2025 version of the Taos has 19 more horses than the previous one, for a total of 174 horsepower, and 185 pound-feet of torque. That’s plenty, especially considering the Taos only weighs about 3,400 or so pounds, which is pretty light by modern standards. The 1.5-liter inline-four turbo engine gives decent acceleration (I’m told it’ll get to 60 mph in about seven seconds), and while I did find the way the (new for this year for the 4MOTION one) 8-speed auto decided to shift a bit peculiar at times, it was generally fine to the point of being, well, forgettable.
I mean that in a good way; the performance of the Taos did what I needed when I wanted it to, and there’s nothing wrong with that! It wasn’t the most memorable driving experience ever, but sometimes, that’s okay! And it fits with the overall character of this car, which is, fundamentally, easy. Undemanding. It’s a tool that gets you and your stuff places, and you barely have to think about it.
Efficiency-wise, the Taos was fine, but that’s about it. I got between 26 and 29 mpg on average, while doing the sort of driving that isn’t particularly troubled with fuel economy. I bet you could squeeze more out of it, just as I’m sure you could get worse.
Some Nice Details And Final Thoughts
The VW Taos isn’t a car filled with Easter eggs or clever gimmicks or anything like that, as much as I love those things sometimes. It’s more of just a good, easy-to-live-with all-rounder sort of car. Sure, that lower grille is kind of huge and silly-looking, but overall I think the car looks pretty good, perhaps in an unremarkable way, but picking one of the bold colors helps a lot there.
It’s just a modern take on a compact-ish wagon, and that’s a great thing to be.
Oh, and the taillights are pretty good, as well! We’re fortunate to be living in an expressive era of taillight design, so we get fun things like the illuminated VW logo:
…and I’m happy to report that the Taos uses amber for the rear indicators:
It may sound a bit absurd to put it like this, but the thing I liked best about the Taos is that it didn’t piss me off. At all! I feel like every car I’ve tested recently has had some wildly annoying detail – touch-screen-based air vent controls or a finicky phone charging mat or being a pain to get in or out of or something like that, and Taos had none of those things!
It was comfortable, easy to maneuver and park, drove well, offered plenty of room for people and stuff, and had controls that were intuitive and easy to use — there was just minimal bullshit associated with this car.
It’s not going to inflame passions or inspire songs or dreams, but for vast numbers of drivers, who cares? That’s fine! They just need a machine to get them and some stuff all over the place, every day, easily. And the Taos can do that.
It’s too new for me to give any kind of informed opinion on how it may age or what maintenance will be like, which is important, but we’ll just have to wait and see. What I can say is that right now, if you are in the market for a not-so-expensive car that will do what you need and not give you urges to put your fist through a touchscreen, I think the Taos is worth a look.
Especially in green.
I have a 2015 Sportwagen 2WD, and since VW no longer deigns to bring its wagens here, I was torn between the Tiguan and one of these. But definitely leaning Taos now. In green. (Or maybe blue. Need to go build one.)
Green isn’t available on the base trim level and is an upcharge. Blue is included in the base price, available in all trim levels and is the default color of the base trim on the configurator.
For ease of use, I’d probably go Taos. I’ve owned a LOT of VWs, including a ’14 sportwagen tdi and a bunch of Golfs. As Jason said, this is basically VW’s Golf nowadays. The Tiguan is a better car, but it has a lot of frustrating shit in the controls – unless you get a base version, then it is simple and VW-like (i mean VW of 10 years ago). Or save your money and get a better used car. You can pick up a nice 3 year old Audi Q5 for less than the price of the higher spec Taos.
Other brands are also available!
As tested:$36,000
Somebody spent 144% too much money for their entry level car.
Seriously Torch, how many pizzas is someone going to have to deliver in order to cover the instant deprecation on those options?
“Entry level” now refers to the purchasers rectum.
Press loaners do tend to be optioned-up to the hilt.
I’m pretty sure you can’t afford any new car delivering pizzas.
(Unless you’re delivering drugs too)
This looks like a perfect place to start a series of rental car reviews. You’ll have to change up the test criteria a little though. How well does it offroad (I mean really offroad)? Can you get air over railway tracks and how much? Can you smell the takeout you left in the luggage area three days ago? Can you lock the transmission into first gear and drive it around for a week like that and what’s it like on the freeway when you do? What’s the maximum wet dog capacity?
In short, how well does it Altima?
Either the price or the drivetrain need a major update. As is, it’s $1,000 more than a loaded, AWD Corolla Cross Hybrid, which has more power and gets substantially better fuel economy. I’m sure the features and specs don’t line up entirely, but, my money is going to the Toyota.
Agree. Also Toyota has a better proven record for servicing prices, reliability and resale at least in Australia. Unfortunately the packaging in the Corolla is annoying so you do miss out on a spare tyre.
The grille is par for the course today but it seems that’s the only dumb design trope they’ve fallen for and at least it wears it somewhat well. No two tone roof, no technosqiuggle split lighting, no floating d pillars or blacked out a pillars, it’s not covered in fake vents or fake diffusers. I honestly dgaf about the fake exhaust. If this were a Taos GTI then sure that would be bad. If you hate them that much just paint them black and they’ll disappear The only thing that truly bothers me is those hideous black wheels. Fuck I am sick of these. They look like shit no matter how clean they are or what the lighting is like. I would immediately have them coated bronze or a titanium silver-grey color.
Honeycomb grill patterns are the new khaki pants…or athleisurewear or something.
That lower grille is seriously Fugly.
And the black wheels make it look like someone parked it overnight in the ghetto and the hubcaps were stolen.
You should drive a Trax LS. It’s an inexpensive little wagon without a lot of BS, too.
No amber rear turn signals, though.
I’m not sure where Torch would get one, I’d assume all the press loaners are the high-series 2RS or Activ.
> the hubcaps were stolen
Robin_Williams_whatyearisit.gif
TRax; with the super-pressure ready-to-blow turbo 1.2 litre THREE banger? Made in KoreaChina. Sir; N F W !
The little 3-cyl is made in Mexico, then shipped to South Korea for installation into the Trax.
And even though it’s powered by a 3-cyl, it’s actually quicker than our 2015 Cruze 2LT with the 1.4T 4-cyl.
Plus, our local Stealership gave us a lifetime powertrain warranty.
We only put 1700 miles on it in the last year so we’ll see what we get for our $22K.
These are a lot of the same reasons we love our MQB based Golf Sportwagens. Everything is good enough or better.
So… there won’t be many customers ticking the moonroof option in Africa?
Seems like a capable and useful car. Two hates: those awful wheels and another stupid southwestern city moniker. Please foreign automakers stop doing this; I promise, it doesn’t make me more inclined to buy your product.
I dunno, I think the Korean ones have stuck around long enough to be cutesy, especially with the old Santa Fe’s ‘sun’ logo.
https://www.motortrend.com/files/65c41396c378ac0008578145/2021-hyundai-santa-fe-42.jpg?w=768&width=768&q=75&format=webp
With the Taos it does feel out of place since it’s the only one in the range named as such.
I don’t know if it means I’m more or less crazy for agreeing with Torch, but this was my exact thought I had with a recent Taos rental. It was just so damn competent at being a lil car. It also claimed to be getting ~24mpg at 92mph cruising, and it wasn’t a typical super noisy 2.0L I4 like you’d expect.
My two real complaints are: (1), there is NO indication on the dash if your headlights (and therfore taillights) are on; the only indication are the symbols around the headlight switch way down left on the dash.
And (2) you can’t display the tachometer along with any other data. What the hell VW? It’s just a SCREEN, why such ridiculous limitations on what data can be co-displayed?
The light indicator seems like such a German solution – “why add another indicator for the lights away from the light switch?”
For one, it washes out pretty easily if it’s not dark out. I remember trying to figure out if it had such an indicator on the drive home after taking delivery of my Mk7.5 GTI. It was a bright sunset, so shadows had the auto lights usually on, but couldn’t easily tell.
For another, while the Mk7 was at least close to hand in the 9:00 position, in the later/next round of VWs they seemed to really bury the light switch closer to your knees, on a part of the dash that angles away from the driver. Tiguan, Jetta, didn’t matter the size. Yeah it may be auto but then why make it a guessing game…
Yep, exactly my experience and thought process. Wouldn’t be a dealbreaker on a GTI for sure, but still questionable.
My wife says it’s easy to be content when you set a low bar. Wait a minute….
“playing 1980s reruns of The McLaughlin Group, nonstop. I mean like a collapse on the floor and writhe around screaming “I DON’T CAAAAAARRRRRREEEEEE” sort of apathy.”
John McLaughlin was a class act. Mort Zuckerman too. The rest, usually meh.
Don’t expect to ever own another VW, the snot attitude at the dealer when I asked if they could pull a code for me “you’ll have to wait an hour and pay $150 min. service fee” final straw.
Dealers gonna be dealers no matter the brand. Just sayin’
I’ve dealt with parts, and service departments without issue, but that dealership made you go to the sales floor for service. About 7 years ago, I hope they have improved.
VW more than any other entry level import feels engineered to be costly for US consumers. In Europe any mechanic can work on them. But VW USA dealers let the proprietary diagnostic tools go to their head.
They’ll do anything short of asking customers to just bend over. Somehow even warranty works is a nightmare.
It’s not any more proprietary than any other OEM. You’re not gonna plug your Hyundai into an AutoZone scanner and get all the info the dealer would get with their Hyundai special laptop. Plenty of affordable tools exist to troubleshoot in a meaningful way. Obdeleven started out as a VAG thing but they are constantly adding manufacturers and can pull real codes and data and do logging, coding etc all through a phone app. It’s a great tool to keep in your glovebox for supported cars that are out of warranty.
Also, I’m no dealer stan but a dealer asking for compensation for their time at a competitive rate doesn’t sound like attitude at all.
Speaking from experience, the difference is that VW knows about the bad reliability and the over-engineering (long repairs/high labor costs). They also know you can’t wrench this thing in your garage and that many private mechanics won’t touch them. Thus you’ll probably need to bring it to a dealer long past the warranty, which you would almost never do for a Honda. To use a poker analogy, it’s the smugness of someone who knows they have a royal flush and you have 3 of a kind.
The McLaughlin Group was also a great SNL skit.
https://youtu.be/QOLF_D7JVZM?si=GSQFUPEKOl85HWmt
“ELEANOR, I THINK YOU’RE SWELL-ANOR? WRONG!!!”
I’m partial to this John McLaughlin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McLaughlin_(musician)
I’ve owned a Golf (GTI) and drive a 2014 Sportwagen, and you describe living with the Taos in the same way I would describe those VWs. I’m glad it’s a decent little car, I always wrote them off as being cheap and kinda half-assed. I just wish they had taken some, hell, any risks, with the styling. VW’s SUVs are the automotive version of those Russian nesting dolls. For a company that produced some of the most recognizable cars in the world (most of them on the same platform), their styling as of late is pretty uninspiring.
The grand German tradition of “same sausage, different lengths”.
I got my current Tiguan this past summer and the dedicated phone air duct seemed like a brilliant idea. Until this week in single-digit temps with the heat blowing at full blast which means that the phone air duct is blowing frigid air into the car at the same fan intensity!! The phone duct just pulls air into from outside it seems, at whatever fan speed you’ve got the system set to. If they were truly clever they’d include a shutoff damper! Still, nice to see evidence of sweating the details now and then.
Chewing gum in that hole will fix things nicely.
It appears to be perfectly cromulent, indeed. Perhaps just as cromulent as the offerings from Mazda, Honda, or Toyota. When new. Once we get to year 8 of ownership, the Volkswagen will probably be less cromulent than the others.
Do you happen to be a viewer of the youtube channel Garbagetime?
I’ve seen it, but it doesn’t intrigue me enough to subscribe.
Wonder which of these nuggets can bring back the most old mate golf clubs and VHS tapes from Cashies
Doesn’t it still have touch-based climate controls? I coulda sworn it did in the photos I saw.
Ok, so it appears the base model has manual (knob and button) climate controls. The high end models have the annyoing touch sliders.
Something Chinese cars have engineered and rapidly converged upon is wireless charging pads. Basically everything mid-market has 1 (or 2 if premium) wireless charging pads at the front of the center console, which have a rated power of 50W (instead of the pitiful 15W we get here) to overcome misalignment and the inherent inefficiencies of wireless charging. Most importantly, they all have a fan+vent directly underneath the phone for cooling, occasionally with some ‘creative’ mechanisms (like tilting the entire tray down to reveal concealed vents).
I wonder how long it will take for Western market automakers (especially the non-Koreans) to get to this point in the wireless charging arms race.
Its a tall Golf, just like every other subcompact CUV – I’m looking at you (and specifically you) GLA and CX30. As an owner of a 24 GTI 380, much of that interior is pretty much stock-standard MQB platform. Nothing wrong with that. They are all basically a Lada Niva – compact car on stilts.
But hey, at least the tires have no sidewalls!
(Gun to head, I’d have this before any of the other VW suv things, mainly because I like the hatchback form factor, and this is rapidly becoming the only way to get it)
The most successful model in the small suv segment is the Subaru Crosstrek so it makes sense that all other manufacturers are going to do something similar to appeal to buyers and keep prices low
Best glow-up since Chevy launched the new Trax.
And good luck finding one of the 17 green ones the entire us dealer base has ordered for the year
Right?
Wrap it. Grabber blue would look great in this car.
There’s actually a factory non-metallic blue that’s close, different from the partial color chips (showing only the metallics) Torch showed.
I’m sure it’s nice for what it is – but for no more money to produce, lets get rid of some more of the Bullshit, including the faux exhaust crapola:
Oversized Black Wheels? Replace with smaller metal-colored wheels and tires with some generous sidewall.Big black plastic faux grille and piano black fascia around a grey plastic loop? Replace with a simple body-color or black-ish textured plastic front bumper and simple open vents below said bumper (Simplify rear bumper to match)Unnecessary black cladding around the wheels and sills? Delete altogether.Illuminated Logos? Gone.Black-ish Pleather Seats? It would cost no more to make them greige to match the door inserts and headliner. While we’re at it – we could also make the carpets a darker shade of greige than the seats for zero added cost.
With all unnecessary parts and assembly complexity gone, and more reasonable wheels/tires – I think we might have saved a few pounds, at least $1000, made the interior less dark/depressing/hot in the summer, and maybe even gained an MPG here and there.
With all those savings – VW could afford to offer another actual color.
That grill looks flimsy and expensive – just the thing a veteran deer smacker should be wary of.
Keep the illuminated logos. They’re probably a dollar or two on the bill of materials, they’re not hurting anyone.
When MB started the trend of illuminated logos – they were running @$499.
It’s a loaded tester equipped a certain way, so a lot of those things already exist. The base S comes with 17s, the middle SE offers a light grey interior, and both of those skip the front light bar. The other interior color choice on this SEL trim is blue. The black wheels on this one appear to be a $400 option over standard silvery alloys.
A lot of the rest is just styling, not my personal cup of tea either but for some it is. The cladding the stylists would probably argue breaks up the mass of metal, but TBH it can serve a practical purpose. I had more than a couple dings/scrapes around the rear wheel arches of my GTI that happened when the dang thing was parked.
The plastic wheel and sill cladding should hide the rust for at least a decade.
They may even CAUSE the rust they are hiding for that decade.
So what you are saying is that the Taos is the perfect fleet car. Totally unremarkable and it will not piss you off if you get handed the keys to one by the rental car company or your employer.
I got one as a loaner when the dealer ordered the wrong part for my gti and the part being swapped required the front axle to be dropped. It was, in every sense, Totally Fine. Except the DSG which was jerky and annoying but it looks like they swapped that out
A PDQ Bach podcast?! Away I go!
Test drove this as well. Perfectly cromulent truckster that would, as you said, certainly be elevated by an exterior with a bit more character.
Can you imagine if they took inspiration from the Thing or Squareback? Or any inspiration at all. That might make me overlook the inevitable outrage I would feel at the service center.
Correct me if I’m wrong, is that front-end the same gloss piano black that plagues modern interiors? Because it sure looks that way, even in person.
Imagine if they’d just been making this as a hybrid for the last couple years instead of throwing money into the ID.pit
This with a 250hp combined PHEV setup would be amazing
This! The fuel economy was where they lost me on this review. Just put the big ass battery where the spare tire is and I will trade the risk of a flat for mileage that is much better.
Interesting note. I was reading this review and thinking, “My Prius v is 3500 pounds…it has a donut spare…it has 67 cubic feet of storage with the second row folded flat…it gets 38-44 mpg in my experience.”
Of course, that’s also FWD-only, and a model that’s been out of production for 8 model years now.
Still, if one fears replacing a hybrid battery or otherwise dislikes them, this sounds like a decent if not ideal compromise for fuel economy. (And I won’t pretend the Prius v could accelerate faster than this, either.)
29 to 38 is a serious jump. If VW could get this thing to 35 and make it a bit faster that to me is interesting. Toyota has shown that hybrid is the right answer. You get all the benefits of both systems with very little of the negatives of either system. I was member #5 or 6 of the Prius are stupid club. I have admitted I was wrong and Toyota was right.
Also the V is an underrated good looking car. The current Prius is downright sexxy.
Oh yeah, but it’s certainly a compromise. And I assume even an 8-speed auto “feels” better to most drivers than the eCVT.
Funny, looks were 100% not on my list of things to care about beyond being generally intact.
The gen 5 might look nice, but the sacrifice of headroom and rear storage space too much defeats the spirit of the Prius.
(…even if I acknowledge it’s the right thing for Toyota’s bottom line.)