How did Toyota f*** up the Gen 5 so badly?

They sort of did, but they called it the Camry.

The 5th Gen Prius packaging is weird and arguably poor unless the goal was a low jellybean shape, in which case it's great. The current generation Corolla sedan hybrid uses space more reasonably and is shorter, but brilliantly packaging lot of interior room into a small footprint doesn't seem to be a Toyota strength.

 

There's a hybrid hatch version too, no?

 

In our market? I don't believe so.

I had a Corolla hatch. It doesn't use space especially well. For a driver over six feet, it doesn't seat four people. Incredibly, even the Corolla hatchback is longer than a Golf, which has a more generous interior.

 

In other markets. There is also wagon available outside the US.

 

Speaking of bad ideas, I'm sure someone at Toyota has thought about a plug-in Prius with the Camry/Rav4/Sienna engine and rear motor and concluded that the product either wouldn't sell enough to pay for the crash testing, or that it handled like such a pig the reviews would do damage to the brand.

In the Rav4, the GR package adds about 800 pounds over the 3600 pounds of the Rav4 LE. If you add 800 pounds to an LE Prius you are just about at the two ton mark.

The Rav4 GR has been tested at between 5 and 5.5 seconds to 60. Take the weight down to two tons or less with a better shape and 320-ish hp, and you might get a 0-60 of 4.X seconds.

The GR set up takes a Rav4 from 44mpg to 37mpg, a 16% reduction. A 16% reduction in a Prius LE's efficiency would put it in the high 40mpg range.

A Prius with the Rav4 GR treatment might be 700 pounds heavier than the $40,000 Corolla GR and something like a half ton more than the $35k GR86.