Author: EVAI

The Toyota Prius is the best hybrid on sale. It’s far more efficient than other hybrids, while offering plenty of room for four adults, ample cargo space and a responsive, refined driving experience. The real question, though, is whether you should get the plug-in hybrid version.

I spent a week with one to find out. And while I truly believe the Prius Plug-In Hybrid (PHEV) is one of the best plug-in hybrids ever, I still think the regular Prius is the right choice for most shoppers.

Read below to see why.

What Is It?

The Toyota Prius popularized hybrid vehicles in the United States, and has been a fixture of our roads since 2012. The Prius Plug-In launched in 2012 as the first plug-in version. While the Prius already offered industry-leading efficiency, the plug-in version allowed drivers to go for up to 11 miles on electric power alone. But with such limited electric-only driving range, it remained a rare option. It offered poor driving range and the same ugly design as other Prii at the time, but for more money.  

The original Prius PHEV was ugly, slow and boring to drive, with only 11 miles of range. The new one has solved all of those issues.

Photo by: Toyota

Yet Toyota never gave up. The second generation plug-in Prius became the Prius Prime, with the new name signaling Toyota’s renewed interest in the formula. But it wasn’t until this third attempt launched that people really took notice.

The new Prius offers a far more striking design and a much sharper driving experience than previous generations. Now, in PHEV guise, it gets 220 horsepower and up to 44 miles of electric driving range. Zero to 60 mph happens in 6.4 seconds (per Motortrend), and the Environmental Protection Agency says the Prius PHEV will do 52 miles per gallon combined when the battery is dead. 

For $34,445 for the base model, that’s a hell of a deal. 

What’s Good?

The value is hard to argue with. For $35,000, you get a modern, attractive car with seating for five, a generous cargo area and better fuel efficiency than nearly anything else on the market (the regular Prius is the only car that beats it). The Prius PHEV also comes standard with a ton of equipment, including all of the active safety tech you need. Luxuries like cooled seats, a JBL stereo, synthetic leather and a surround-view camera system are all available as extras.

In my real-world driving, I found the Prius to be whisper-quiet and engaging to drive. The steering is far improved over previous generations, and while I’d still prefer driving a Honda Civic Hybrid or Accord Hybrid on a twisty road, the Prius is among the most responsive and sporty mainstream hybrids ever built.

I also observed great efficiency during my test, though my sporadic level 1 charging stopped me from doing a full electric range test. Still, mid-50 mpgs and around 40 miles of EV range seems more than achievable. Since it’s a PHEV, too, you won’t have to do any special planning for road trips.

The bigger, 161-hp electric motor in the PHEV version is also great. It gives the Prius the instantaneous shove of a pure EV at low speeds. At highway pace, you’ll have to wait for the gas engine to spin up for any passing power, but I never struggled for speed. Between the seamlessness of the powertrain and the perfect blending of the brake pedal, any hybrid weirdness has been ironed out. The Prius PHEV feels like a normal, but fast, daily driver. 

It’s also plenty practical. The PHEV version sacrifices some cargo space—20.3 cubic feet of cargo with all seats in place, as compared to 23.8 cubes for the standard model—but with the hatch-back design and folding rear seats, this thing can easily swallow bikes, coolers, surf boards or other long and wide cargo. Just don’t get your hopes up about hauling tall objects: The pinched roof makes this a bit tighter than a crossover. 

What Isn’t?

There’s little wrong with the Prius. I happen to hate the clutter of buttons on the steering wheel, and in general I think the ergonomics are weird. Make sure you sit in one and play around with the controls before committing. Similarly, the awkward shape of the dash and the bizarre angles of the thing make it hard to find a driving position that offers the right mix of reachability, visibility and comfort.  

Speaking of visibility, the Prius follows Toyota’s infuriating trend of fitting driver-monitoring systems that are engaged even when you aren’t using driver-assistance features like lane-centering. If the steering wheel-mounted sensor can’t see your face—even while cruising around your neighborhood—it’s going to constantly tell you that the sensor is blocked.

I also found most of the driver-assistance tech in the Prius to be a step behind the industry leaders. The Prius also comes with Toyota’s “proactive driving assist,” which will use the car’s sensors to automatically adapt the car’s behavior to the driving situation. If you see a curve coming up or you’re bearing down on another car and let off the gas, for instance, the car will slow down more aggressively than if there’s no one ahead of you.

This is the personal opinion of Mack Hogan, who is not a lawyer: This feature should be illegal. 

Cramming 10 largely flat buttons onto the right half of the steering wheel is an ergonomic disaster.

Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs

In general, while what the car does when you lift off can be adjustable, it absolutely must be predictable. I can switch my car between one-pedal and normal driving modes, but it’s a choice I make knowing how the car will behave in all situations. With PDA enabled, however, when I let off the throttle, the car decides based on what I’m seeing. That means a bit of uncertainty at the best, and a safety concern at worst if the car behaves in a way you can’t predict. It’s doubly bad because, anecdotally, many consumers are not aware of the active safety features fitted to their cars. Because PDA is so esoteric, I could see an oblivious driver having it on for years and just not knowing why the car occasionally slows aggressively on lift-off.

Luckily this system—and most of them—can be disabled. So it’s absolutely not a dealbreaker, but something I think Toyota needs to work on.

Why I’d Still Buy The Regular Prius

The Prius may not have many flaws, but I still didn’t like it as much as I expected to. That’s for a simple reason: The last Prius I drove was a standard model. I expected the bigger battery and extra oomph to make everything better. But in reality, I think it spoils my favorite thing about the Prius: It’s seamless. 

The uphill battle of this gig is that I’m always speaking to buyers who frankly don’t want to hear it. The average American consumer probably couldn’t tell you what kind of engine is in their car—”a vee-four” doesn’t count. Almost nobody has a route-planning app on their phone, or wants to learn how to use one. Trying to coach them through living with an EV can be exhausting; most people just want to get in and drive to their destination without a second thought. They’ve never done it in an EV, and that scares them.

The Prius is the antidote. You buy one at the dealership, you use it like a regular car, your running costs are half what they used to be, and it lasts even longer. That’s the mission. The standard Prius fulfills it without further work from you.

The PHEV promises more, meanwhile, but also asks for more. It costs $5,000 more to start and, when the tax credit disappears at the end of the month, even lessees will be paying more. It gives up 3 cubic feet of cargo and hauls an extra 364 pounds around. It is not available with all-wheel drive, either, while the standard Prius is. It gets “just” 52 mpg combined, rather than 57 mpg on the regular one. 

Most importantly, the PHEV gives you more to manage. There are buttons that allow you to use up all of the electrons immediately, or to hold the charge for later. There’s a gas cap and a charging port. There’s another battery indicator to keep an eye on, another charger to carry, another gadget to plug in at the end of the day.

For what? More efficiency, of course. That is a noble goal. But the Prius is already getting nearly 60 mpg. It’s so good it’s silly. Commuting on electric power alone would be cheaper, but you’d have to do quite a complicated calculation to find out how quickly you’d make up the $5,000 difference. Remember to factor in that you’re getting worse MPG when the battery is dead.

You may come out ahead. But even if you do, you’ll run smack into the classic PHEV issue. If you have a cheap place to charge at home, and you’re willing to plug in every night, why wouldn’t you get an EV? You’d have to charge less often with the bigger battery, and you won’t have all of the compromises and maintenance that come with an internal-combustion vehicle. I just don’t think PHEVs are the right solution for most people. 

Conclusion

I know, I know, I can hear you shouting “road trips” at your screen. PHEV proponents argue they are the best of both worlds, giving you emissions-free commuting and planning-free road trips.

This idea is based on two misconceptions: One, that EVs cannot handle road trips, and two, that road trips are an integral part of all of our daily lives. Let’s tackle the second first: If you are seriously debating the merits of a PHEV vs an EV, ask yourself honestly how many times in the last 24 months you have driven over 500 miles. If you’re not doing it more than four or five times a year, you have nothing to worry about. An EV may cost you an hour of time once a year, but it will save you a hundred visits to the gas station in day-to-day life.

That puts the Prius PHEV in a weird place for me. I think it is the best PHEV you can buy, and it’s the only one I’d seriously consider. Yet fundamentally, it has the same problem: Those with home or work charging are better served by EVs, and those without charging at home or work should probably stick with a conventional hybrid.

PHEVs are for the awkward folks in the middle, those who have home or work charging, but who still road trip so frequently that they can’t make an EV work right now. To those people, I say go right ahead, snag yourself a Prius PHEV. It’ll be the best and probably last gas car you’ll ever buy.

Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com. 

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Volkswagen’s next EV act has actual buttons, improved batteries and software, and doesn’t look like a spaceship.

• Reporting from the Chinese outlet Mingjing Pro suggests China may soon ban completely hidden exterior door handles.
• Globally, hidden handles have been criticized as being finicky and possibly unreliable, but also dangerous for first responders.
• If true, Chinese and Western vehicles would have to change designs to be in compliance with the regulation.

The tech-forward Tesla Model S slipped onto the scene in 2012 with dazzling flush-mounted door handles that popped out whenever the car was unlocked. Fast forward more than a decade, and self-retracting, electronic door handles are now ubiquitous—and kind of a calling card for electric vehicles. Perhaps manufacturers wanted to replicate Tesla’s success by emulating the coolest parts of its products. 

For automakers and techno-geek customers, they’re the pinnacle of tech—a quick way for manufacturers to make a kind of ordinary car feel futuristic, while also reducing drag and improving efficiency. For some drivers though, they’re just a pain. It’s not uncommon for people to complain about the reliability and usability of the handles themselves. Recently, they’ve come under heavy criticism by some regulatory boards in different countries, as some deeply question whether they’re necessary at all.

Now, China is considering banning the use of hidden, electric door handles, the Chinese media outlet Mingjing Pro reported this week, citing anonymous auto industry sources. Is that a good thing?

This comes after May’s news that the Chinese government had issued draft rules stating that cars must have a clearly marked mechanical release on the inside, and not just an electronic button. Currently, the ban is still an unconfirmed rumor, but an unnamed automotive company R&D employee told the outlet that Chinese regulators are preparing to ban fully concealed door handles entirely, and that automakers that sell in China need to get on board as soon as possible.

The rumored solution would eliminate fully hidden exterior door handles, but semi-retractable door handles and traditional ones would be fine, so long as they have a physical, mechanical redundant release.

There are plenty of critiques to be had about concealed door handles, and they’ve been cast in a negative light in China recently. Last April in China, an Aito M7 crossover rear-ended a large truck and caught on fire, putting Huawei and Aito into the global spotlight. Some blamed Huawei’s level 2 autonomous driving assistance features for not saving the car from crashing, while others were concerned at how quickly the M7 caught on fire in the crash itself. First responders reported that the M7’s door handles failed to open, making it more difficult to rescue the occupants inside. Unfortunately, three people died in the crash. 

Now, this ban, if true, could substantially change the way cars look. Both Chinese and Western brands would have to work quickly to meet regulations. Cars like the Ford Mustang Mach-E, with its exterior door release buttons, may need to have real door handles for the exterior. The Lexus RZ350e has door handle-shaped grab handles, but they’re actually electronic releases. It too might need to change to conform to this regulation.

I am curious to see how this could affect the Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Kia EV6. Although those handles (optionally, on the Kia) use electronics to keep them flush to the body when the car is locked, they’re actually a mechanical release that isn’t super different from any normal car door. It’s worth noting that it’s common for U.S.-market cars with electronic interior door releases to also have a mechanical backup. 

Should the U.S. be next? Maybe so; safety concerns aside, one of the biggest sticking points for electric cars is reliability. And it’s not necessarily the motor or powertrain that are causing problems, but rather features like super complicated infotainment systems or electronic door handles. Also, critiques of hidden door handles with obscure interior releases aren’t new. In 2019, Dr. Omar Awan died when his Tesla Model S crashed and caught fire. The door handles did not present, and first responders reported that they were unable to extract Awan before the car was engulfed in flames.

I’m all for futuristic car design, but I don’t think it should come at the expense of safety. Maybe getting rid of hidden, self-presenting electronic door handles is what’s best.

Contact the author: Kevin.Williams@insideevs.com

With a name like the Charger Daytona, you’d think that Dodge’s first-ever electric muscle car would be a champ at the charging station. That was not our experience. 

When we tested Dodge’s inaugural electric vehicle this spring, we fast-charged it twice at two different Electrify America stations in the Northeast. Both sessions went sideways in peculiar ways, and we never saw even close to the Charger Daytona’s claimed 20%-80% charge time of 24 minutes. 

That’s part of why, in his Charger Daytona review, InsideEVs Editor-in-Chief Patrick George called it a “great muscle car” and “a weird EV.” Let’s dig into exactly what happened. And to see the Charger in action, check out our charging test above. 

Our first test, at a 350-kilowatt station with plenty of power to meet the Charger Daytona’s 210-kW rating, started off fine. Video chief Mike Roselli arrived with a 15% state of charge. At 40%, the session was cruising along at around 150 kW. Suddenly, the charge rate plummeted to 2 kW, before rising back up to 150. At around 50% battery, the power output fell to a measly 73 kW, trending downward as it reached 80%. The whole session took 47 minutes. 

The final result was so far off of Dodge’s claimed charging time that we had to run the test back on a different day at a different location. 

Once again, the power rate started off strong, exceeding 200 kW at times, but whipsawed to 2 kW multiple times early on. This made for one of the strangest charging curves we’ve ever seen. The charging session cut out entirely at 36% (which may very well have been the charger’s fault). Once we resumed, the power rocketed up to a healthy 180 kW, but soon dropped to 40 kW, where it remained for the rest of the session.

This time, predictably, 20%-80% took well over an hour. 

When we asked Dodge about this, a spokesperson said the charger itself is usually to blame for the slow speeds, and that “the charge speed experience is not due to limitations on the vehicle side.”

He can’t speak to how widespread this issue is. However, according to YouTube videos, other Charger Daytona drivers have experienced similar issues across EVgo and Tesla Supercharger stations as well. Hopefully this can be solved with a software update. 

Do you own a Dodge Charger Daytona? What’s your experience been like overall, and with charging in particular? Let us know in the comments below or shoot me an email.

Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com

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Believed to preview an Audi counterpart to Porsche’s electric 718 Boxster and Cayman, this concept shows that Audi design is back, baby.

This phenomenon has kind of tapered off in recent months, but for a while there, I couldn’t go a single week without getting about a bunch of emails from Tesla owners seeking advice on how to dump their vehicles.

The issue wasn’t even with the cars themselves. Most Tesla owners I spoke to really love their electric vehicles. The problem, you see, was the man up top: CEO Elon Musk. His various antics had Tesla owners everywhere scrambling to move to something electric from a different, and less controversial, brand. And most of those people were driving a Tesla Model Y, which makes sense, since it is the best-selling EV of all time.  

The good news for those people was that their choices for Tesla alternatives are now better than ever. There’s the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the Kia EV6, and the value-packed Chevrolet Equinox EV, just to name a few of the top of my head. 

Much to their consternation, however, there are still ways the Model Y runs circles around everything else. Yes, even now. And that’s especially true with the Model Y’s Juniper update—the car you see tested here in this video. 

Since Tesla does not do press loaners like other automakers do, I rented this Model Y off Turo for a week. It’s a Long Range, Dual-Motor All-Wheel-Drive model, the one packing a 75-kilowatt-hour battery and good for an EPA-rated 329 miles of range. And thanks to a raft of improvements inside and out, the Model Y is now a significantly better car than it’s ever been—one with a nicer interior, better technology, more overall comfort, more range, more striking looks, and packing the best adaptive high beams I have ever tested in my career. All that and a bag of chips for around $45,000, before any incentives or tax breaks, as long as those last.

As you’ll see in the video above, the Model Y remains the total package EV. Maybe it’s not the fastest-charging EV these days. Nor is it the fastest, period. And there are many areas where rivals are beginning to outpace it, if they have not already. But can you find all of those things rolled into one car that’s as good as this one, at this price point? The answer is not really.

You can say what you want about the guy up top, or the Tesla brand in general, or how it’s settled into a kind of Apple-like groove and doesn’t really seem to be innovating in terms of the EVs themselves, the way that it used to. But none of that changes the fact that the Tesla Model Y is an outstanding buy, and still quite possibly the best EV for most people. 

Check out our video review up top and let us know what you think in the comments. 

Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com

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• InsideEVs Editor-in-Chief Patrick George drives the electric Porsche Macan 4.
• The electric Macan is not mechanically related to the gas-burning car and is quite a bit more expensive.
• It’s not perfect, but it’s a great overall package that shows Porsche has learned a lot from building the Taycan.

You see a lot of Porsche Macans around the world, driven by people with expensive sunglasses and designer handbags. It is the cheapest way to enter the Porsche universe, and it blends excellent road manners with style and practicality, making it a global favorite.

But now that the combustion engine Macan is being phased out and replaced by a considerably more expensive pure electric model, does it have what it takes to maintain its popularity? Both flavors of Macan are still on sale today, and so far this year, and it’s the electric model that has proven more popular, even despite going electric (and potentially alienating part of its buyer pool) and hiking the price.

Even though the electric Macan is proving successful, Porsche isn’t taking any chances and has confirmed that it’s working on a new midsize combustion crossover. It will arrive in 2028, and it won’t be called Macan. 

While the Macan EV is more expensive than the ICE model, it’s also a better, more grown-up vehicle. The two are not mechanically related and the electric model rides on the VW Group’s Premium Platform Electric (PPE), which also underpins a couple of Audis. Thanks to this platform, it has a big 100-kilowatt-hour battery pack and offers big luxury car features such as rear-wheel steering.

This isn’t the first time we’ve tried the Macan, but now InsideEVs Editor-in-Chief Patrick George has spent more time with the car and had mostly positive things to say about it. His tester was a Macan 4 with a dual-motor powertrain providing 402 horsepower and 479 lb-ft of torque. That’s enough to send the Macan EV to 60 mph in 4.9 seconds and up to a top speed of 137 mph.

The Macan 4 has an EPA range rating of 308 miles, but that goes down to around if you get the larger RS spider-design 22-inch wheels like the ones on Patrick’s tester. Interestingly, when Out of Spec Reviews drove a Macan Turbo at 70 mph, it actually exceeded its 288-mile EPA claim by 2 miles on 22-inch wheels. Tom Moloughney got 343 miles in the base rear-wheel-drive Macan on 20-inch aero wheels, surpassing its 315-mile EPA range prediction by almost 10%.

With a starting price of $81,600, the all-wheel-drive Macan 4 is definitely expensive. Patrick’s tester had some options, so it cost $94,855, which is a lot for a Macan, no matter what powers it. Patrick missed one-pedal driving, which the Macan doesn’t really offer, and it could also do with a bit more drama when you’re going fast in one. But overall it works really well, it’s practical, it’s well built and it’s just a cohesive package. It really shows Porsche has gained experience making EVs, and in many areas, it feels like an improvement over the Taycan.

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Carmakers are now stuffing big batteries into their loudest and proudest performance flagships—the cars in their lineup that typically have the highest emissions—and it has created a crop of cars that are quite odd. They are absurdly quick in a straight line and can take you dozens of miles on electricity, but the heavy hybrids start to fall apart when you try to throw them into a corner like their non-electrified predecessors.

This became apparent after driving the new G99 BMW M5 Touring and then jumping into a Mercedes-AMG C63s E-Performance. One has a big V-8 complemented by a big battery that gives it dozens of miles of electric range, while the other has a small four-cylinder, with a smaller battery whose purpose is mainly to increase performance. Two very different approaches that at launch drew a lot of critcism from fans and keen drivers, but for different reasons.

The new BMW M5 feels even more gutsy than its claimed 717 horsepower output would suggest. It’s not surprising that one dyno test revealed that it was pushing almost 700 hp to the wheels, meaning the real output is probably closer to 800 hp. It pins you to your seat with its alarming pace, whether from a standing or a rolling start. There’s nothing quite like feeling the shove of a 4.4-liter twin-turbocharged V-8 engine with 737 pound-feet (1,000 Nm) of torque.

The M5’s powertrain is unequivocally brilliant. Part of that comes down to the fact that it’s also pretty great to drive without firing up the V-8. With 197 hp and 206 lb-ft (280 Nm) of torque, the electric motor, which lives inside the eight-speed automatic gearbox, is more than capable of moving the M5 on its own. Even in my hefty, 5,456-pound (2,475 kg) Touring Model, the M5 felt brisk in EV mode. 

I found myself enjoying driving the M5 most in EV mode, surprisingly. It pipes in a subtle, fun acceleration sound through the speakers. It also shifts up through the gears when the V-8 is off and you feel the shifts, although you can’t control them yourself in EV mode. The electric motor sends its power to all four wheels, meaning that even driving in EV mode in winter or low-grip conditions, you know you can rely on the all-wheel drive system’s reassuring extra traction. It’s a great around-town electric experience no matter the weather.

After driving the M5 Touring and putting a few hundred miles on it, I kind of wished I was driving the pure electric i5 Touring M60 instead, a thought I never expected. The new M5 is the first BMW M that I didn’t instantly covet after driving. Because it’s so heavy (heavier than the i5), BMW has had to tune the suspension to cope with the mass, and it results in a weirdly inconsistent ride quality. It can’t decide if it’s a Maybach or a pogo stick and you never know which of those extremes you’ll get.

Mid-corner bumps also unsettle the car, often alarmingly, and you feel the transfer of forces from one side to the other as you thread the car around a twisty road. All this mass makes the M5 feel like an athlete trying to run with ankle weights on. There’s an uncomfortable amount of inertia trying to pull the car straight into understeer when you drive it spiritedly.

Then I jumped into the still heavy but far more agile Mercedes-AMG C63 PHEV, and it really put the M5’s mass into perspective..

I know it’s one size class below the M5, so it’s not a direct and totally fair comparison, but I would honestly pick the C63. Yes, it only has four cylinders, which is half of what the BMW has, and a few dozen fewer horsepower. But it feels more special to drive. And while its engine may only be a 2.0-liter, it’s an actual AMG engine hand-assembled by someone who puts their name and signature on it.

The signed plaque is proudly displayed when you pop the hood, and you also get to see the big turbo and electric supercharger setup sitting to the side of the engine. This was a more impressive sight than what I saw when lifting the hood on the M5, whose clever hot-V twin-turbo setup is hidden by an underwhelming plastic engine cover.

The M139 engine is borrowed from the hottest versions of Mercedes-AMG’s compact offerings, like the CLA 45. It makes well over 400 horsepower on its own, and together with the electric motor, puts out 670 hp and 752 lb-ft (1,020 Nm) in the C63. That’s more torque than the BMW in a car that’s about 880 pounds (400 kg) lighter, and you can really feel it.

The force that acts on your body when you do a Race Start in the C63 is unlike anything I’ve ever felt in a combustion car. It definitely feels faster than the BMW, even though on paper, they are fairly evenly matched. Just like the BMW, the Mercedes feels quicker than the numbers suggest, but by an even greater margin. It’s shockingly quick off the line, thanks to all that torque and its all-wheel drive that does a fantastic job of putting the power to the ground.

There’s also an electric supercharger working to build boost quickly and minimize lag. The powertrain is really responsive, and the surge you feel from the combined torque of the electric motor and gas mill is really something. It doesn’t sound as bad as some have said, even if you disable the piped-in enhanced engine sound. You still hear the exhaust, which is characterful, and you get to hear the turbo build pressure and release it, which, for me, added to the fun.

It’s also much more enjoyable through the corners than the M5. It doesn’t feel like the C63s of old, which were always all too eager to turn their rear tires into shreds and smoke. The new model feels like a track car, focused on delivering the best possible corner exit with minimal drama.

Sure, the C-Class on which the C63 is based is smaller and lighter than the G61 5 Series Touring that serves as the basis for the M5. However, there isn’t an E63 that we can compare it to (yet), and the E53 plug-in hybrid that I have driven is not in the same performance league as the M5 and C63, even though its widebody treatment suggests it would be.

Mercedes could have ended up with a PHEV that was nearly as heavy as the Bimmer, but it intentionally designed a lighter system. Unlike the M5 and E53, which have a similar battery and motor configuration as lesser PHEV versions of each model, the C63 gets a smaller, bespoke setup. Its electric motor isn’t located in the gearbox but integrated into the rear axle, and its main purpose isn’t to drive the car around in EV mode (even though it can do that for around 5 miles). It’s there simply to boost performance, which it does in spades.

Mercedes’ real genius move with the C63 was giving it a smaller battery. While the M5 has a 22.1-kilowatt-hour battery, which is largely to blame for its heft, the C63’s battery only has a capacity of 6.1 kWh. That’s small by PHEV standards, but it does the job, and that job is mostly regulatory—it needs to do well in lab testing to please the European Union’s increasingly stringent emissions standards.

The heavier, more powerful of the two, the BMW, gets a WLTP efficiency rating of between 1.6 and 1.7 liters/100 km, or almost 150 mpg. However, that’s only if you keep the battery topped up, which many PHEV drivers don’t, which is why the M5’s EPA combined rating of 13 mpg (18 l/100 km) is much closer to what it actually returns in normal driving.

The C63 doesn’t get a comparable efficiency rating in Europe, with a claimed average of 6.9 l/100 km or 34 mpg. You will have to be extremely gentle with the throttle to come anywhere near that, but it is achievable, even with a drained battery. Driving it like I did the BMW to enjoy the car rather than save fuel, it ended up returning around 15 mpg, which is still excellent given the ludicrous acceleration that it can provide. The EPA rates the C63 at 20 mpg with a depleted battery, which is definitely achievable without trying to drive especially efficiently.

Look, we’re InsideEVs—we love electrons. But in performance cars, more battery isn’t always the way to go. The people who buy these cars can afford to fuel them up, and the advertised and often unrealistic efficiency numbers are not a key selling point for someone looking for a C63 or an M5. Plus, performance cars are a tiny subset of overall vehicle sales, accounting for a tiny fraction of overall emissions. We can electrify mass-market cars today, which would pay far greater dividends. But as the M5 proves, if you want the best possible driving experience, a giant battery can get in the way.

Even though Mercedes is accused of doing it wrong, I think it has the right approach to making a performance PHEV. The C63 is a better driver’s car than the M5, which is just too heavy to be fun. The C63 is still heavier than it would have been had Mercedes stuck to a V-8 without electrification, but for a PHEV, it’s still an excellent and exciting driving experience. It feels more special than the M5, even with half the cylinders.

There should be a clear distinction between electrified cars designed for efficiency and those where electrification is meant to enhance performance. Some great performance PHEVs include the second-generation Acura NSX, the Corvette E-Ray, the Ferrari 296 GTB or the new Lamborghini Temerario. Sure, electrification does enhance efficiency to a degree in any application, but making a PHEV too heavy by giving it too big a battery can make it less efficient than the same car powered solely by combustion.

What Mercedes-AMG did with the C63 PHEV is closer to Ferrari’s plug-in hybrids, where efficiency is never the key point of focus. The battery doesn’t have to be huge, and in cars like the Ferrari SF90 and 296 GTB, it’s under 8 kWh, which doesn’t overburden the chassis and keeps these cars’ handling pure. Getting a few miles of electric driving is a bonus, but the main point of the electrification remains performance.

The only catch is that if the battery runs low, the engine turns into a hamster wheel, sapping power to make electricity to replenish the pack. Unless you’re doing several laps of the Nurburgring, that likely won’t matter. I drove the C63 quite hard around a twisty road for over half an hour, and it still showed around 33% battery remaining. Maybe if you take it on a track where you keep the throttle pinned for longer, you will feel the performance loss, but in my experience, there was none.

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The way it looks is reason enough to buy the Renault 5 E-Tech. It looks like the result of tossing several classic Renault hatchbacks into a blender with some sci-fi gravy. It somehow ends up being a really tasty combo, but what clinched it for me was that it drives with enough poise and gusto to challenge a Mini Cooper E.

It strikes a better balance between sporty handling and comfort than the new Chinese-built Mini J01, which feels too stiff in comparison. Like the Mini, the R5 has a multilink independent rear suspension setup, which you rarely see in this segment of the market, making it feel surprisingly sophisticated as it glides over road imperfections. Oh, how very French of it.

This is one of the few electric cars that should come close to matching its WLTP range thanks to its consistently impressive efficiency, even when you’re not trying to save electrons. It’s nice to look at, pleasant to travel in, and the user experience is especially impressive.

It’s not perfect, though, since the version you want, with the more powerful motor and bigger battery, is not cheap, and there’s no room for a rear passenger sitting behind taller drivers. But if you accept that it’s pitched as a somewhat premium product (hence the price) and keep the hauling of big groups to a minimum, it all starts to make sense.

Tron Meets Baguette

Few cars blend retro design cues into a fresh, cohesive and modern look quite like the Renault 5. It’s like something you would see in a sci-fi movie with its holographic-looking, squared-off daytime running lights and matching squares in the headlight glass.

One of my favorite details is the 5 on the left side of the hood, which mimics the placement of an actual vent in the classic Renault 5, which was sold as the LeCar in the United States. The 5 even lights up in higher-spec versions like my tester, where it also acts as a battery meter to tell you the state of charge from a distance.

It also plays a cool animation when the car unlocks, and it makes you feel pretty special. It may seem trivial, but the light-up 5 is a must-have option for this car. I also really like the design of the rear lights, which, just like in the classic 5, run up the C-pillar. They have a cool 3D effect and built-in fake vents, which are meant to resemble the ones on the mid-engined Renault 5 Turbo rally homologation special. The Turbo is coming back with electric power, featuring in-wheel electric motors.

There are plenty of cool details all around the vehicle, and they all blend really well with the overall design. Nothing feels forced or like an afterthought on this.

Wheel design isn’t something I normally feel the need to mention in a review, but I have to because all the available options for the Renault 5 are fantastic. Even the base model’s hubcaps have aesthetic appeal, likely also helped by the fact that all wheel choices are quite big for a car this size at 18 inches—even the steelies.

An ‘80s Arcade Machine That You Can Sit In

The interior perfectly matches the exterior for style, with the same kind of retro-futuristic approach. This is the first car I’ve been in recently where thick bezels around the displays look like a smart design choice and not the result of the manufacturer installing screens smaller than they should be and trying to make them look big.

The top of the gear selector is translucent and has the Renault logo inside, which looks really fancy. Putting it in gear and using any of the stalks, I was impressed by how solid, damped and expensive they felt. The steering wheel looks great and is fantastic to hold on to. It’s probably one of my favorite helms in a modern car.

The seats also deserve a mention. They’re trimmed in something that feels like denim with a mustard yellow color that seems ripped out of a 1970s design magazine. The chairs themselves are soft, supportive and utterly French in the best possible way. They look fantastic and appear modeled after the Turbo 2 seats.

This is also the first modern car where thick bezels around the screens didn’t make it look cheap. Quite the opposite, actually. The driver gets a 10.1-inch display behind the steering wheel, while there’s another 10-inch screen in the middle handling infotainment. It’s among the best I’ve ever used in a car. We’ll get to that shortly.

The user experience inside the R5 is also really good, thanks to a brand-new infotainment operating system built around Android Automotive. I’ve met actual people less responsive than its artificial intelligence-powered digital assistants. Chatting to the bot is surprisingly natural, making asking it questions a lot less awkward than in other cars.

As much as I loved the R5’s interior, it’s not quite perfect. While I praised the overall build quality, there were a couple of spots where the plastic panels didn’t join together perfectly, and the ergonomics are a bit odd, too. To the right of the steering wheel, you have three stalks. One handles the transmission, another the wipers and that’s just too much to remember the position of on one side of the wheel.

There’s also no ‘Park’ position for the transmission, so when you want to stop, you put the car in neutral and then extend your arm all the way to the nether reaches of the dashboard to pull the parking brake button. Then again, a French car without a little weirdness would be an incomplete product.

But another issue I have with the R5 is the shameful lack of rear legroom. With the driver’s seat set for a six-footer like myself, there is no room for a full-size adult to sit behind the driver. There’s just no space for their feet, which makes the car more of a 3+1 rather than a true four-seater. This doesn’t make me like it less, since it’s about the same as a Mini J01, but it could have been a bit better. Maybe Renault could have sacrificed some trunk space for a bit of extra rear leg and foot room.

Corners Like It Means It, But Softly

Photo by: Andrei Nedelea

What really won me over is how it drives. The steering is sharp without being twitchy, and when you tip it into a corner, it weights up nicely and gives you a lot of confidence. That may seem secondary for a car that will spend most of its time sitting bumper-to-bumper in a crowded city. But it is this responsiveness that made me (and many others) like old Renault Clios, so I was very happy to see this character transferred to the new EV.

The well-judged suspension also deserves a mention. It’s a bit softer than in the Mini J01, but it’s all the better for it, since it has a smoother ride over uneven roads. The multilink rear suspension really helps when going over big imperfections or over the wildly inconsistent tram tracks that we have here in Bucharest. Almost no subcompact cars these days have independent rear suspension—it’s kind of a premium feature—making it clear what Renault is aiming for with the R5.

Taking it out on some more windy country roads, the R5 never felt flustered. Carry a bit too much speed into a corner, lift off just before hitting the apex and you feel it rotating around you, like a proper hot hatch should. This isn’t just competent. It’s fun, and I can’t say that about too many EVs in its price, power and size bracket.

My tester had the beefier motor. It delivers 148 horsepower and 180 pound-feet (245 Nm) of torque to the front wheels, allowing for a respectable time to 62 mph (100 km/h) of 8 seconds. It’s not as punchy as the Mini Cooper SE that I keep comparing it to, but it’s zippy enough, and flooring it out of a roundabout chirps the tires before the nannies rein in the excess power.

There is no acceleration sound coming through the speakers in the R5. Just silent thrust. In this regard, it’s like a Tesla and not like other electric (hot) hatchbacks. The Abarth 500e comes to mind, which tries to imitate a turbocharged four-cylinder both inside and out. After experiencing the Mercedes-AMG C590 prototype with its expertly done pretend V-8, I’m a bit partial to having an acceleration sound in an EV, but I also don’t mind its absence.

Plug In, Make Tea

With the larger 52-kilowatt-hour “Comfort Range” battery, my tester is officially rated at up to 256 miles (412 kilometers) on one charge. When I picked the car up from Renault Romania, it was fully charged and had a maximum range estimate of 246 miles (396 km) with an average electricity consumption of 4.28 miles/kWh (14.5 kWh/100 km), which almost matched its WLTP efficiency claim.

This was over several hundred miles from the journalist who drove the car before me, with a lighter right foot and more restraint than I could practice. I drove the car mostly in Sport mode for the first few days and really enjoyed what acceleration it had to offer, and my average consumption was 3.86 miles/kWh (16.1 kWh/100 km).

My theory about the best way to test electric cars is not to try to hypermile the thing to get it to come close to its manufacturer-claimed numbers. I drive these cars like I would any car, not treating EVs differently because they are electric, and in some cases, this produces some alarmingly high consumption figures and drastically reduced range. But in the R5, the average was still reasonable, even in spite of my carefree driving style.

Over the last couple of days with the car, I stopped treating it like a hot hatch, and the efficiency immediately started improving. By the time I returned the car, it had gone down to 4.09 miles/kWh (15.2 kWh/100 km), and this included the first two days of more brisk driving; I didn’t reset it specifically because I wanted to see how it all evened out.

I only charged the R5 briefly, with around 68% in the battery, preconditioning on the way to the charger. Juicing up to 80% from a 150 kW charger, I never saw more than 65 kW going into the car, even though it can take up to 100 kW. Its peak charging power isn’t great, with a claimed 15 to 80% in 30 minutes, but its battery is just about small enough that it’s not bothersome. Using its 7 kW onboard charger takes over six hours to fully replenish the battery from flat.

Thanks to its vehicle-to-load (V2L) function, the R5 can supply any device with up to 3.7 kW of power through a special adapter that snaps into the charging port and allows you to connect anything via a household-type socket. The adapter costs an extra $231 (€200), but it’s well worth getting.

I’d Buy One. Seriously

With its blend of tasteful retro style masterfully executed by Renault, impressive driving dynamics and great range from its relatively small battery, the R5 E-Tech is easily one of the best subcompact EVs you can buy today in Europe. With a starting price of $29,100 (€24,900), which goes up to just over $40,900 (€35,000) for a fully specced Iconiq Cinq example with the big battery.

It’s not perfect. It’s small, a bit pricey and its charging power is only so-so. The fact that you can’t carry an adult behind a tall driver is a big downside. But you know what? It looks fantastic and drives great, and it’s close to the top of the shortlist of EVs I’d seriously consider buying today.

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The pedals and steering wheel can retract, and the bodywork vibrates to remove sand.