After driving the new Prius V with other journalists last month, we recently had an opportunity to spend a little more time with the car at our test track and gained further insights.

As we reported before, the Prius V is longer and taller than the familiar Prius hatchback, which will continue to be sold alongside the V. Cargo space is increased by about 60 percent.

But that is not the end of its added versatility. Based on Toyota’s specs, it has as much rear seat room as a Lexus RX and as much cargo space as a Subaru Forester. Need more cargo space? The back seat slides fore and aft up to 7 inches. It can also recline. Under the rear cargo floor are two large storage bins.

In Europe and Japan, Toyota offers a version that offers a tiny third seat. It sits in the space under the rear cargo floor. To facilitate the added row, Toyota uses a much smaller but more advanced lithium-ion battery pack and stuffs it into the center console. Toyota says that would add too much expense to sell that version in the United States plus the product planners in California think Toyota offers enough three-row models here.

We had a chance recently to try out the Prius V’s new electric mode on a short stretch of road near our test track. With the Prius’s small standard hybrid battery, it was hard to keep the car in electric mode, which can only operate below 25 mph and only with four bars remaining on the battery charge-level indicator. Even then, Toyota says it’s only good for about a half-mile, and I think we didn’t get that much range out of it after climbing a small hill.

We also tried the Prius’s Intelligent Parking Assist, which is billed as being able to back the car into a parallel or perpendicular parking space, with the driver controlling only the brakes. We’ve tried a similar system before on a Lexus LS and found it could be frustrating to use, being overly sensitive to brake modulation. We didn’t have a chance to try parallel parking with the Prius V, but in a perpendicular space in our parking lot, we found things haven’t really improved.

We plan to take a more in-depth look at Toyota’s new Entune infotainment system in a future post, but one thing I did find handy was a new feature that will locate local gas stations with the lowest prices on the navigation screen. These days, that is quite the welcomed feature.

Overall, the Prius V (not to be confused with the Prius hatchback in Five trim) is about the size of a Mazda5 or a Kia Rondo. With an EPA-rating of 42 mpg in combined city and highway driving, we think it’s a prime candidate for a future list of the 12 most useful cars per mpg.

We look forward to doing a full test on the Prius V after it goes on sale in September, when we’ll see how it stacks up on that list and against other recommended, fuel-efficient family cars.

Read our guide to fuel economy.