Toyota Prius C vs Honda Civic

What's the difference?

See if you can guess the name of the world's first ride-sharing app. You're thinking Uber, right? Nope. It was a company called Sidecar. It's broke now, shuttered for good in 2015. What about the first video-on-demand service? Netflix? Nope. Amazon beat them to it, for starters, but so did many other, now-defunct companies who tried it even earlier.

The point is, being first on the scene is no guarantee you'll be the best, or the most successful. I mean, just look at electric cars; plenty of manufacturers were doing all-battery models before (and arguably better than) Tesla, and every one of them is now parked in Elon Musk's gargantuan shadow.

Before full-electric there were hybrids, and first to arrive on that particular scene in any meaningful way was Toyota and its awkwardly shaped Prius, back in 2001. And they had that field to themselves for a while, but soon enough the other manufacturers trotted out hybrid and plug-in hybrid models of their own.

And so Toyota shook up the Prius offering, launching the seven-seat Prius V, and the bite-sized (and Yaris-based) Prius c we've tested here, in 2012, hoping to broaden the appeal of its hybrid offerings. Problem is, 2012 was an awfully long time ago, and so Toyota has waved its wand over the ageing Prius c for 2018, changing its design, tech offering and interior in an effort to keep it fresh.

So, is the Japanese giant still head of the hybrid class? Or has it been beaten at its own game?

I’m just going to cut to the chase here. This Honda Civic hybrid is a good car. A great one, even.

But for some reason, nobody is really buying it. And it’s not just because it’s not an SUV – it has been outsold in its segment this year by the the BMW 1 Series, the Mercedes A-Class, the MG4 EV, and the VW Golf. Premium and non-premium alike, they’ve all got the little Honda licked.

So, what’s going on? A CarsGuide investigation is required. Stick around and we’ll try to figure this out together.