I have owned Toyota hybrids for a few years now and have been satisfied with the quality and performance. My wife and I cover about 12,000 miles a year. It's mixed driving (motorway, country roads and some city). Because my wife does quite a lot of shortish driving, on country roads in particular and sometimes into South London from Kent, I have wondered whether our next car should be a plug-in Toyota Prius. However, I have read about the "lugging a heavy car around" after the electric charge runs out. This has confused me because I was under the impression that when the charge runs out it would perform like our current Toyota Auris Hybrid and recharge during the journey? Was I mistaken and does it then perform like an ordinary petrol car?