4 Hidden Easter Eggs You Can Find On The Toyota Prius

At first glance, the Toyota Prius looks like a sleek and modern hybrid, just as you'd expect. However, if you take a closer look, hidden design details just might catch your eye. Known as Easter eggs, these design elements require you to do a little hunting — much like a traditional Easter egg hunt, only this one is made for adults. These Easter eggs range from subtle symbols to graphics the car's designers have discreetly engraved on glass and plastic surfaces. From the windshield to the glove box, you'll find these Easter eggs on the inside and outside of the car.

While Easter eggs don't have a functional purpose, automakers include them to add a bit of fun to the car and get you exploring all of the details it has to offer. For example, Jeep's Heart 419 Easter egg, a nod to Toledo, Ohio's area code, got a lot of people talking. Not to be outdone by Jeep or any other car manufacturer, Toyota has added its own playful features to the Prius. Once you start looking around, you'll find that it's full of unexpected Easter egg surprises.

When we think of hashtags, social media platforms like TikTok, X, and Instagram come to mind. Hashtags are a way to draw attention to a post and make it easier for others to find them. Toyota takes a cue from social media with its playful use of hashtags hidden in the Prius' interior. You may be wondering what business hashtags have on a car. Don't worry, Toyota hasn't created a Prius covered in hashtags. Instead, it has placed them in a couple of strategic locations for you to find. In fact, unless you tell them, nobody but you and other Prius owners will even know they exist.

The easiest Prius hashtag to find is located inside the glovebox, and it states the obvious: #GLOVEBOX, just in case you weren't sure what that compartment under the dashboard was for. You'll have to do a little more searching to find the next hashtag: #HIDDENCOMPARTMENT. To find it, remove the tray below the center console that's in front of the cupholders. When you do, you'll find a hidden storage area with the hashtag.

Once you've found that one, there's another one waiting for you in the console box itself. To find it, all you have to do is open the console box and lift the cloth that's covering it, and you'll see #CONSOLEBOX. You can find one more hashtag, #WIRELESSCHARGER, in the area next to the console box. There's also a hashtag #BATTERY, which you'll find on the case for the 12-volt battery. You'll have to get into the back seat to see the final hashtag, #SAFETYFIRST. To uncover this one, you'll need to fold the backseat down and move the seatbelt strap to the side. While these hashtags aren't things you need to know about before buying a Prius, they're a fun added touch.

The Easter egg Hybrid Reborn, which is located in at least three places on the Prius, can easily go unnoticed if you're not looking for it. Hybrid Reborn is the tagline that Toyota introduced with the 2023 Prius, so it doesn't come as much of a surprise that the automaker has found a way to work it into the car's design. Looking around the Prius, you'll find the Hybrid Reborn inscription on the cowl below the windshield and inside the hatch opening next to the taillight. If you lift up the hood of the car, you'll find the Hybrid Reborn inscription there, too. 

The Prius got a major makeover in 2023 and the Hybrid Reborn tagline was Toyota's way of emphasizing this change. The Prius was the world's first production hybrid car, combining an electric motor with a high-efficiency engine to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. For Toyota, the redesigned Prius represented its expectation to be a leader in the hybrid vehicle space well into the future and that's a big part of what the Hybrid Reborn slogan represents.

You may have to strain your eyes and move things around a bit to locate this hidden Easter egg on your Toyota Prius. You'll find a silhouette of the Prius in at least three locations on the car. On the outside, if you remove the rear license plate, you'll find a silhouette of the very first Prius made with the words, "Since 1997" to remind you of when it all got started. Since the Prius debuted in Japan over 25 years ago, Toyota has sold more than 15 million hybrid electric vehicles worldwide, contributing to an estimated 120 million ton reduction in CO2 emissions. 

You'll also find a Prius silhouette in a couple of other locations on the car. If you look at the base of the rear window, you'll see one there. There's another one near the top of the windshield at the base of the Toyota Safety Sense radar and camera housing. When the front doors of your Prius are open, you'll be able to find the same silhouette on both sides of the dashboard.

While all cars have some sort of badging that represents their brand, Toyota has taken it a step further, incorporating various hidden badges in different parts of the Prius. While some famous car badges have meanings you may not know, the Prius badge has a pretty straightforward circular blue emblem design. This represents Toyota's new "Beyond Zero" (bZ) emblem, which first appeared on the 2023 Prius Prime and you'll find it on the rear of the vehicle. 

Other badges are simply the letters Prius spelled out in different places around the car. You'll find Prius written on both rear fenders. That's not all, if you check out the headlight assembly, you'll see the Prius badge there as well. On the A-pillar along the windshield, you can also find Prius written in small letters. If you open the fuel door, next to the gas cap, you'll see more Prius lettering. 

Finally, if you take a look at the heat coils of the rear defroster, you'll come across the last Prius badge. The cool thing about this badge is that it heats up just like the rest of the coils. If you start up your car on a cold day, you may get a chance to see the Prius name melt into the frost on your rear window, but it will be fleeting.