The new Prius looks awesome. It’s a strong departure from the awkward, mean-faced design of the last-gen car, plus it’s quicker and more efficient than ever before. But the coolest part of the Prius isn’t its looks or efficiency. It’s the way Toyota’s managed to integrate a trick hybrid all-wheel-drive system.

Most cheap economy cars equipped with all-wheel-drive have a primitive (but still effective) way to get power to all four wheels. Peek underneath your average RAV4 or CR-V and you’ll see a transmission or transfer case sending power to the front wheels through a pair of half-shafts and a driveshaft that connects to a differential out back, which gets power to the rear wheels. It’s a method that’s worked well for decades, but it adds weight and results in parasitic losses for the driveline, compounding inefficiency.

Mid-engine supercar manufacturers have used hybrid tech to work their way around this method of power distribution. Instead of using a driveshaft and an extra differential to get power to the front wheels, electric motors are placed up front to spin the tires, adding power and traction without having to carve out space in the unibody for extra drivetrain components. It’s this kind of thinking that’s led to mind-blowing performance from cars like the Porsche 918 Spyder, Acura NSX, and Ferrari SF90 Stradale.

The Prius has been using a similar kind of all-wheel-drive system since 2019, except reversed. In the AWD-equipped Prius, thrust from the…