The North American Prius achieves the Californian SULEV emission standard. This is the lowest achieved by any production car powered by a gasoline ICE. The European Prius already meets the Euro 4 standard, which does not apply until 2005.

The European Prius has a fuel consumption of 5 l/100 km, 56.4 mpg, on the European cycle. On the UK Vehicle Certification Agency web site, only two models have lower fuel consumptions - the Honda Insight with 3.4, and the MCC Smart with 4.8 – but these have only two seats. Next comes the Toyota Yaris with 5.6. Hence the Prius has a lower fuel consumption than a super-mini, together with a higher carrying capacity than a small family car (like the Corolla or Golf).

The Prius fuel consumption of about 5 l/100 km implies a CO2 output of 0.114 kg/km. A GM EV1 electric car does about 6 km per kWh. One kWh generated from coal or oil produces 2.5 kg CO2, which implies 0.42 kg/km. Hence, compared with an electric car, the Prius puts out only about one quarter as much CO2.

Steady speed fuel consumptions are difficult to determine for hybrid vehicles, due to changes in the State of Charge (SOC) of the battery, but the US EPA has reported some for the Japanese Prius. My spreadsheet model shows approximately how they vary with road speed.

The European Prius can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 13.4 s and has a sustained top speed of 99 mph. A US motor magazine has published some acceleration times for the Japanese version. My spreadsheet model shows approximately how acceleration times vary with road speed.