Cars of the Decade - 2005

2005

Official Winner: Toyota Prius

Autoblog Winner: Toyota Prius

This is a tricky one. We don't think the Mark Two Prius was nearly as clever as Toyota claimed: in a back-to-back test we did against a Jeep Patriot diesel its real-world fuel consumption was no better than the Jeep. Why would we vote for it then? Because the Prius was a necessary stepping-stone to more efficient hybrid cars which are starting to appear now. Toyota got a lot of experience of making hybrid cars and solving their technical issues with this car. It was not Toyota's fault that more efficient lithium-ion batteries were not yet available.