It's easy to feel the difference too. While there are faster midsize cars on the market, the Prius leaves little to be ashamed of. Power comes on immediately upon takeoff, ample enough to spin the front wheels if you're not careful. The new HSD powered Prius reaches 100 km/h approximately 10 seconds, shaving almost 3 seconds from the old car's 0 to 100 km/h time of 12.7 seconds. Rather than rocketing from the stoplight, most Prius owners will appreciate how this added oomph improves safety by increasing speed during passing maneuvers. I drove it up an extremely high mountain that left us above Pasadena's low lying clouds. During my drive to the top the Prius never hesitated, offered full power with a quick prod of the throttle and didn't come close to running out of electrical reserves - something that I experienced during an uphill drive in a Honda Hybrid.

While not a sports car, the 2004 Prius is great to drive, offering excellent feedback and safe, sound car control. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press)

The new Prius also managed the curving mountain road with impressive composure, hardly leaning into fast corners, remaining stable during back and forth emergency lane changes, and staying flat during aggressive braking - assisted by ABS and Toyota's regenerative braking system no less. While I wouldn't go so far as to say it felt like a sports car, the 2004 Prius was truly enjoyable to drive, offering excellent feedback and safe, sound car control.

The 2004 Prius has the best fuel economy of any midsize vehicle, while reducing emissions by 30 percent over the previous model. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press)

But of course, while improved driving dynamics will make the new car more appealing, absolute power and sporty handling aren't Prius trump cards. Toyota made sure that the new Prius would outperform the old model in fuel economy and emissions too, thus it increases efficiency by 15 percent, giving it the best fuel economy of any midsize vehicle, while reducing emissions by 30 percent. To put that into perspective, the Prius dumps 90 percent fewer tailpipe pollutants into the atmosphere than a gasoline powered conventional engine with similar performance. It also meets Environment Canada's extremely stringent Tier 2, Bin 3 standards and the California Air Resources Board's Advanced Technology Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle (AT-PZEV) standards. Remember that question about doing the right thing? I think what was gray area has just become clearly black and white.