Although not yet tested by crash test experts at EuroNCAP, we’d expect Toyota Prius+ safety levels to be impressive. The firm has a long history of building safe and reliable cars and there’s absolutely no reason to expect less from this model. Safety equipment fitted as standard includes six airbags, ABS, traction control, steering-assist vehicle stability control, active front headrests, ISOFIX child seat restraints, hill assist control and an emergency braking signal.

As a seven-seat MPV the Prius+ is a pretty practical design. Each of the five rear seats – three on the first row and two on the second – fold down individually to maximise both load space and people-carrying capacity. You can fit seven normal-sized adults in the car thanks to the sliding seats in the second row: this is a genuine seven-seater. The boot’s capacity is 232 litres including a cubby underneath the boot floor, expanding to a maximum of 784 litres with the rear seats stowed away and a total of 1,750 litres with all of the seats folded away.

There’s also an 8.5-litre glovebox, a 4.5-litre upper glovebox and a cubby on the central console that’ll hold two litres and contains the USB connection. The front and rear door pockets will hold A4 documents or small bottles and there are a total of five cup holders.