Column: No longer for nerds: Cooler, faster Prius is a head-turner

LOS ANGELES — The Toyota Prius is a nerd mobile no more.

In the quarter century since the pioneering gasoline-electric fuel sipper was born, it has gone from a frumpy, dumpy subcompact sedan to a weird origami-styled hatchback with bizarre zigzag taillights.

The 2004 second-generation car, a nicely proportioned hatchback with a smoothly integrated front end, almost turned the corner onto Hip Street, but for a leisurely 11-second 0-to-60 mph run.

The fifth-generation car that debuted here at the Los Angeles Auto Show is a different animal. For one thing, it's now a slick five-door hatchback that looks very much like a sedan. For another, it's faster. Toyota engineers found a way to dramatically increase performance without sacrificing fuel economy. The new car, which arrives in January, will have an estimated 57 mpg combined city-highway fuel economy, and the top model can hit 60 mph in 6.7 seconds.

The styling of the new car is bound to be noticed. From certain angles, the 2023 Prius looks like the love child of a Tesla Model S and a Chevrolet Volt. And that's no bad thing. Toyota calls this design a "Flowing One-Motion Silhouette." Whatever. It's pleasing to the eye, and it could very well expand the car's appeal beyond the "granola crunching Birkenstock crowd," as my colleague Hans Greimel wrote.

The new car also has a more conventional interior with the shifter back between the seats, where it belongs, not on the dash or lower part of the center stack.

One minor demerit: Headroom is tight. The new car is 2 inches lower than the old, and 6-footers may have trouble with ingress and egress.

Dave Christ, Toyota Division general manager, told me the new car, which comes in two models, Prius and the plug-in Prius Prime, should sell between 40,000 and 50,000 units annually in the U.S. Prius sales through the first 10 months of this year are down 44 percent to 29,944 amid global supply and production constraints.

Doug Eroh, general manager of Longo Toyota, in El Monte, Calif., the world's highest-volume Toyota store, looked over the new Prius at a private event on the eve of the L.A. show and said he isn't worried that the car looks too much like a sedan when consumers are defecting to crossovers and SUVs. "Gas price are high, and there is a significant amount of demand for sedans in California, especially hybrid vehicles," he said. "The styling is outstanding and Prius is a good brand. I think we'll have significant demand."