Remember the Toyota Prius C? If not, then we totally understand. It’s the kind of car that would probably make you say “Wait, they sold those here?”
And, indeed, Toyota Motor Philippines did. The Prius C was offered here from 2012 until 2021. At the time, the idea of owning a hybrid wasn’t mainstream yet, and there was practically no incentive to own an electrified vehicle. By that, we mean it was pretty expensive for a small hatchback. If anything, Toyota was lucky enough to sell five units of these a year and there were years they sold none.
While it stayed glued to showroom floors in the Philippines, it remains a hugely popular model in Japan. Known as the Aqua in its home market, the second-generation model was introduced in 2021 and still remains a strong seller. This year, it gets a pretty extensive facelift.
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The most obvious change is to the nose of the car. The new Toyota Prius C/Aqua now adapts the new C-shaped headlight design as seen on the CH-R, Crown, Camry, and Prius. Because of all the styling tweaks, it also gets a reshaped hood and bumpers.
New wheel designs are also part of the changes made for the 2026 model year. There’s also a gloss black tailgate garnish to make look more up to date. New color options complete all the updates made for the exterior. Inside, it looks largely like the pre-facelift model, but it does get a new multi-information display with updated graphics. Speaking of which, the infotainment screen has been enlarged to eight inches.
There are other minor updates made to the car. There’s now motorcycle detection for its advanced driver assist system. All variants now get an electronic parking brake with brake hold, and the vehicle’s overall width is reduced by 30mm.
Carried over from before is the 1.5-liter, three-cylinder Atkinson Cycle engine mated to a single electric motor. Combined power output is rated at 114hp, while the electric motor alone produces 141Nm. There’s also an all-wheel drive variant that adds a second motor and five extra horsepower.
As far as we can tell, the Aqua is only sold in Japan. That means there’s pretty much no chance of it being sold in other markets. While its platform is based on the Japan and European-market Yaris, we reckon Toyota would prefer to keep this model right-hand drive only. After all, the Yaris is also sold as a hybrid in most markets, effectively making this model redundant abroad.
