The Toyota Prius hybrid has been named as the best car to own in Auto Express magazine’s 2019 Driver Power Survey.

It topped the publication's new car ownership survey with an owner satisfaction score of 93.22% and was named Best Compact Family Car.

The world’s biggest-selling hybrid narrowly beat the Lexus IS saloon, which placed second with a 93.19% rating.

Lexus has three models in the Top 10, with the IS also picking up Best Compact Executive Car and the GS being named Best Executive Car.

Thousands of car owners responded to the survey, which rates cars for a variety of categories; including engine and gearbox, practicality, fuel economy, reliability and infotainment.

Six of the top ten finishers are available as hybrid, plug-in hybrid or fully-electric models, indicating that once drivers make the move away from models powered solely by internal combustion engines, they are very happy indeed.

Another highlight for Driver Power 2019 was the Alfa Romeo Giulia taking bronze for the second year in a row. Owners heaped praise on the compact executive saloon across the board, and rated it the number-one new car for ride and handling.

Top-ranked new cars, according Auto Express Driver Power 2019:

1)Toyota Prius
2) Lexus IS Mk3
3) Alfa Romeo Giulia
4) Kia Sorento
5) Lexus RX
6) Skoda Kodiaq
7) Peugeot 3008
8) Hyundai Ioniq
9) Lexus GS
10) Kia Niro

The survey also highlights the negative aspects of car ownership.

Once again, the premium brands fared poorly when it comes to the number of faults encountered by owners.

More than half (52%) of BMW X3 Mk2 owners reported faults since taking ownership, ahead of 44% of Mercedes GLC owners.

Around a third of Land Rover Discovery Sport (33.8%), Jaguar XE (31.4%) and Jaguar F-Pace (30.4%) owners said they’d experienced problems with their cars.