2023 Honda Accord Touring vs. 2023 Toyota Prius Limited: Hybrid Theory

From the December 2023 issue of Car and Driver.

We’re living in an EV world. Electric vehicles are the glittery objects grabbing everyone’s attention, from the government to car manufacturers to consumers, who are on track to snap up more than a million EVs this year. To which we counter, “Not so fast.” Maybe you want a hybrid instead. Whether your goal is cutting your operating costs, saving the planet, virtue signaling your elevated social conscience, or some combination of the three, hybrids offer some advantages EVs can’t match. To make that point, we’ve pitted the Toyota Prius and the Honda Accord hybrid against each other. They’re two of the most up-to-date—and possibly the best—gas-electrics on the market.

At first glance, this contest might appear to be between apples and cantaloupes, a hybrid-only Prius up against a conventional family sedan in the Accord that’s been implanted with a hybrid powertrain. In reality, though, this matchup is more like McIntosh versus Honeycrisp.

Since both the Prius and the Accord hybrid were new for 2023, they represent their makers’ latest hybrid technologies. They’re also emblematic of why hybrids remain relevant. They deliver excellent fuel economy on the highway and transcendent fuel economy in town. And unlike EVs, hybrids don’t require you to plan road-trip routes that tie you to America’s less-than-reliable charging networks; you just gas and go.

The Prius and the Accord hybrid share some technical similarities but also carry with them intriguing contrasts. Both cars, for instance, are powered by Atkinson-cycle 2.0-liter inline-four gas engines and store electrical energy in small lithium-ion batteries, a 1.1-kWh juicer in the Accord and a 0.9-kWh unit in the Prius. Here, both are front-drivers (the Prius is available with all-wheel drive), and both employ regenerative braking to recover energy. From there, things diverge.

The Honda’s gas engine turns a generator that charges the battery or supplies energy to the traction motor that turns the Accord’s front wheels; the traction motor also recoups energy during deceleration events. The Accord features three direct-drive ratios, and at highway speeds, a clutch connects the Honda’s engine directly to the front axle, further improving fuel efficiency. Meanwhile, the Prius sends the output of its engine and two motor-generators through a planetary gearset, an arrangement that can continuously vary the gearing while powering the front wheels. Despite those engineering differences, the two cars’ propulsion systems spit out similar power: The Prius makes 194 combined horsepower, and the Accord 204. Both cars can drive on electricity alone for short distances at city speeds.

The models we chose for this throwdown, the Prius Limited and the Accord Touring, are also close in other ways. They’re the well-equipped top trims in their respective lineups, as opposed to the models with the highest EPA fuel-economy estimates and fewest niceties. And they’re similarly priced: As tested, the Limited and the Touring are within $1500 of each other.

To see which of these apples is sweeter, we put them through a four-part taste test. The driving regimen included urban streets, two-lane roads, interstates, and a separate 200-mile highway run at 75 mph to unearth each car’s real-world road-trip fuel economy.

2nd Place: Toyota Prius

Passersby notice this car. The first night we had it, a neighbor pedaling by on his bike asked if he could shoot a photo of it. The next morning, a kid climbing off a Kawasaki Ninja asked, “Is that the new Prius? Sick!” We might have used a different descriptor at the time, but we quickly came to feel the same. The Prius finally looks every inch the high-tech, high-performance machine it is rather than like a science project gone awry. “High- performance,” of course, refers to its ability to squeeze the most miles from every drop of fuel. That hasn’t changed, but now there’s a lot more to this car.

Not only does the new Prius look as sleek and fast as a racing greyhound, but it also sprints well enough that references to lethargic canines no longer apply. The hybrid system’s power is up by a combined 73 horses, a 60 percent increase, and it shows. The new Prius now hustles to 60 mph in a peppy 7.1 seconds rather than 10.5 and zips through the quarter-mile in 15.5 seconds at 92 mph—far quicker and a massive 13 mph faster than before. It matched the Honda’s 30-mph time and beat it to 100 mph by 1.0 second. In other acceleration tests, it trailed, but not by much. It’s now lively enough to be, dare we say, almost fun.

The powertrain is refined, seamlessly blending gas and electric power. You can’t feel what’s going on behind the scenes, but you can hear it. There’s more engine presence in the Prius’s cabin than in the Honda’s, and the gearbox lets the engine drone at high rpm for brief periods, like when you’re merging onto a highway. Thankfully, those intervals no longer last as long.

The chassis is now equally pleasant. It serves up a well-judged balance of agility and coordinated handling matched by a resilient ride that handily sponges up road imperfections. If the dampers were 10 percent firmer, we might even call it sporty. Its steering cuts cleanly and transmits some road feel, and the car corners at a very un-Prius-like 0.87 g on its 195-mm-wide Michelin Primacy All Season tires, providing plenty of grip to play with on back roads. Did we just put “back roads” and “Prius” in the same sentence?

HIGHS: Head-turning looks, well stocked with features and amenities, mega real-world fuel economy.
LOWS: Smallish rear seat, poor instrument-cluster placement, occasional engine droning.
VERDICT: The tastiest way to get maximum fuel economy short of a plug-in hybrid.

The biggest difference between the Prius and the Accord is size. This is a compact car, narrower and lower than the Honda and 14.6 inches shorter overall, and in the back seat, it feels every bit a size-class smaller than the Accord. There’s adequate legroom for six-footers in the rear, but just barely, and the severely sloping roofline squeezes rear headroom.

Still, the Prius Limited has a welcoming cabin with interesting styling, average materials, and plenty of features, including heated and ventilated front seats, heated outboard rear seats, a JBL audio system, dual-zone climate control, and more. In fact, a Limited equipped like ours offers several extras the Accord doesn’t, including a heated steering wheel, a camera-based rearview mirror, a power liftgate, a 360-degree camera that scans the car’s periphery in a circular sweep (part of the $1085 Limited Premium package), and dual sunroofs to the Honda’s one. Curiously, the Prius’s steering wheel partially blocks the gauge cluster—the interior’s one significant ergonomic miscue.

Of course, this is a matchup of fuel sippers, and here the Prius rules. Its smaller size and 296-pound-lighter weight contribute to its fuel-economy advantage, where it returned 48 mpg to the Honda’s 43 mpg on our road drive. It also delivered 49 mpg on our 200-mile, 75-mph highway run, while the Honda managed 39 mpg.

The base Prius on 17-inch tires should do even better as its EPA combined fuel economy is 57 mpg, 5 mpg better than the Limited’s. And there’s also the plug-in Prius Prime, which in SE form offers 45 miles of electric driving range. So, if fuel economy is your priority, the Prius is your ride. It’s a slick-looking, well-executed, and surprisingly engaging automobile now. For us, though, the other car in this test was sweeter.

1st Place: Honda Accord

The Accord Touring is the stealth hybrid of this duo. In contrast to the Prius, there’s nothing about the Honda’s appearance indicating it mixes electricity and gasoline. In its dark business suit of Canyon River Blue Metallic paint, our test car looked every bit the tasteful and reserved executive-level sedan it turned out to be. It just happens to come with a hybrid powertrain. That seems to be Honda’s grand plan for propagating hybrid propulsion: Make it standard. The top four of the Accord’s six trim levels come only in hybrid form—no powertrain substitutions allowed.

In almost every way, the Accord Touring is a class above the Prius. It’s much larger outside and, more important, inside. Its extra length and width give the cabin much more breathing room and an airy feel. Six-footers have space to stretch their legs from the heated outboard rear seats, which are higher off the ground than the Prius’s and more comfortable. The interior materials have a near-luxury feel, with plenty of well-padded surfaces, and most hard plastics are well hidden. The seats, steering wheel, and shifter are leather-covered. (The Prius sheathes those parts in synthetic leather.)

The interior design is as conservative and conventional as the exterior, with an easy-to-see digital instrument cluster residing in a hooded binnacle. Like the Prius, the Accord rolls with a good-size infotainment screen that’s reasonably user-friendly, and there are hard buttons for the climate controls and a knob for audio volume.

HIGHS: Roomy cabin, upscale interior appointments, the epitome of refinement.
LOWS: Fewer extras for the price, less cargo room, fuel economy is second best.
VERDICT: A delicious, luxurious, driver-friendly sedan that just happens to be a hybrid.

The rich feel of the Accord hybrid is underscored by the way the car drives. We’ve long admired how Accords comport themselves over the road, and this newest generation holds to that tradition. It’s comfortable and poised yet nimble and responsive. That and its impressive 0.90-g cornering grip—from 19-inch Michelin Primacy MXM4 all-season tires—invite playing on twisty roads. In fact, this Accord has the handling and moves of a sports sedan.

The Accord also has enough performance to be engaging, with a 6.5-second 60-mph time—0.6 second quicker than the Prius—and a 15.2-second, 91-mph quarter-mile run. In normal operation, the powertrain is a smooth runner, as well integrated as the Prius’s but considerably quieter. The Honda’s four-cylinder operates so silently at times that it can be hard to tell whether it’s even running. Full-throttle bursts are much more subdued here than in the Prius, and the adjustable regen is stronger.

The Accord’s real-world fuel economy is impressive for a car this big and luxurious, but it pays for its greater size and weight on the highway, where it’s a whopping 10 mpg less parsimonious than the Prius. The laws of physics remain immutable, but the Accord’s combination of roominess, comfort, luxuriousness, driving chops, and exceptional overall refinement won us over. Like McIntoshes and Honeycrisps, the choice between the two is ultimately a matter of personal preference. The Toyota Prius is a great car and the best at the hybrid mission, but the Accord Touring is the hybrid we want most.

Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com