I won the use of one of these for 90 days for being a local teacher of the year, so I am getting quite the "test drive." So far I've driven it 5,000 miles; we just got back from a 2,500 mile trip from OK, through KS, MO, IA, MN, SD, WY, and NE. I normally drive a Dodge Ram Hemi, so there is quite a difference between the two, although I have to say that the Prius is not at all what I expected.

First of all, I thought I would be going a lot slower and getting passed by everyone while driving in a hybrid car. Quite the opposite, surprisingly. I am quite impressed with the get-up-and-go of this little car! I can pass when I need to, and staying with traffic is no problem. The 110 HP hybrid engine takes a little getting used to---it switches back and forth between the two depending on what you are doing (stopping, accelerating, coasting, going up or down hills, etc.). All of the switching is felt by the passengers, so it's not the smoothest ride. It reminds me of driving a stick-shift.

If you want to see EXACTLY what the gas engine, electric engine and battery pack are doing (where the energy is going) you can look on your video display on the console. There is a display that shows the wheels moving and the different engines, and arrows point to the direction of energy flow. It is quite fascinating (and can probably lead to a wreck if you are not careful). There is also a display for current and past (in 5 minute increments) gas mileage and regenerated power, as well as average mpg since you last hit the 'reset' button on that particular screen. You store energy in the battery when you coast, go downhill, or apply the brake.

My husband and I have contests to see who can get the best gas mileage. I have the lead foot, so I "only" get into the low 40s, usually. Quite a change from 10-12 mpg that I'm used to getting!!! Over the course of 2,500 miles of highway driving on our 5-day trip, we got 42.6 actual mpg. The gas tank holds a little under 11 gallons, so you fill up every 400 miles or so, for under 40.00 (at today's rates).

Starting the engine is interesting. It has a smart key, so you don't have a traditional key to stick into an ignition. As long as the key is in the car, the car will start. You put your foot on the brake and hit the 'power' button, and the car starts. Usually you can't even feel the car starting. You only know when the radio or A/C kicks on. The shift lever is a tiny lever (like a couple of inches) on the dash, sticking straight out at you, that you maneuver into the gear you want, and as soon as you let go of the shift lever, it goes back to the position it was in. To park, you can hit the parking button, or just hit the power button and it will go into park immediately.

You can't lock your keys in the car. If you lock the doors and your key is inside, the doors will unlock. Whew!!! To unlock your car, you just walk up with the smart key. If you are at the driver's door, the driver's door unlocks. If you are at any other door, all of the doors unlock. It's really weird to have the key in your pocket and walk up, open the door, drive away, park, go in your house, etc. and never take the key out of your pocket.

The remote has a lock, unlock, and panic key. If you hit unlock once, the driver's door (only) unlocks. If you hit unlock twice, all doors unlock. If you hit lock while someone has a door open, they WILL NOT lock. The car makes a long beep until the open door is shut. Then you can lock the doors. I found this out after pushing lock while a door was still open, and came back to find the car unlocked.

Most of the controls for the car are on the steering wheel--volume for the radio, phone buttons for bluetooth access, A/C temperature controls, info/map buttons for the display, etc. This is so you infrequently have to take your hands off of the steering wheel. Of course, with all of the screens and subscreens you can access (climate, audio, map, info, display, etc.), your eyes will be diverted enough.

Even though you can control the A/C temperature from the steering wheel, you cannot vary the A/C 'windspeed' from the steering wheel, and since there is no shift lever on the dash, you have to go through the screens to make the A/C blow lower or faster, which can be frustrating when you are dying of heat and on a highway. .the speedometer and odometer are digital (green) and WAY in front of you in the dash. There are two trip switches, and you can have the readout in mph or km/h.

The seats in the car are not made for long-term comfort. After about 2 or 2.5 hours straight, it stops being comfortable. After a 4 hour stint of driving the highway, my tailbone actually hurt. So did my husband's. We had to eat a meal just to get out of the car for awhile and recover.

There are big blind spots on all four corners of the car, because the frame takes up a lot of space in each corner. The rear view isn't the greatest either, because of the spoiler going across the middle in addition to the wide frames in the corners. I always turn around and look before switching lanes, and there is still a blind spot even then. You have to move your head back and forth to make sure you don't miss somebody.

The back seats of the car fold down separately to lay flat, so you have more storage space in the back of the car, or room to put a larger item in (like a bike). The back 'trunk' has a horizontal window shade available for you to cover any valuables, and the shade itself can pop off so it doesn't interfere with larger items when the back seats are down. There is also storage under the floor of the back, between the floor of the back and the area with the spare tire and jack. It is about 8 inches high and maybe 2' x 3'. Good place for cameras and other valuables, but if you have to change a flat, all that will have to come out.

Our car has 2 'cigarette lighters' for plugging in electronics (no actual lighter in the car, though, at least not this one). One is below the passenger's dash and one is inside the armrest between the two front seats. Not the most convenient locations. . .

Our car also has a backup camera that comes on when the car is in reverse. It is good to use to make sure no kids or items are behind you that you couldn't see otherwise, but I don't rely on it for backing. But it does come in handy, especially if you are having to back and need all the room possible--you can see exactly how close you are getting to a ditch, another car, etc.

There are two glove compartments in front of the front passenger--one opens up and has a removable shelf for small items (our Tom Tom fits in there when we aren't using it), but it's small enough that the owner's manuals don't fit without bending. The other glove compartment is big enough to hold our video camera, which is about 8" x 5" x 4", so it's pretty roomy.

Our car has a 6-disk CD changer, and you can store about 12 FM stations and about 6 AM stations in the memory of the 'audio' button. It is a touch screen to switch radio stations in the memory, or you can twirl a knob to switch stations. Volume is also a knob, or you can use the touch screen or your control on your steering wheel. If only the A/C had a knob. . .

There is a fuel door latch so no one can access your gas tank (unless they want to drill a hole through the metal plate, which is apparently what people are doing these days). It is a small latch between the driver's seat and door, on the floor. Easy to access.

The car is low to the ground and the seats have a wide range of forward/backward movement. I am 5'1.5" and can easily reach the pedals with the seat not in the farthest forward position (which is really unusual). The seat isn't electric--you still have to bend over, reach down and grab a metal bar and use your body to move the seat for adjustment. But the windows and locks and side view mirrors are electric.

For a small car, it is surprisingly roomy. You can lay the front passenger seat all the way down to sleep (awesome!!!), and there is plenty of footroom. Even my tall friends think so. . .

You don't have to worry about car maintenance--there are warning lights for everything--even low tire pressure. There is a place to record when everything gets done to your car (oil changes, filter changes, etc.) on the video screen, so you can check when you are wondering. This car even has a 'black box' that records what your car was doing in the event of a crash. It doesn't record conversations, just the mechanical stuff (could be good, could be bad, depending on how you drive, I guess). In the event of a crash, there are side curtain airbags, steering wheel and dash airbags, and door airbags. So you should be pretty well enclosed in air bags in the front seat, and from the sides in the back.

Towing with this car is different, but easy. There is a little plate on front of the car that is a circle (on the front bumper). You can pry the plate off with a screwdriver, or even a Swiss army knife's fingernail file. Then you take an eyelet screw (in the trunk area with the jacks) and screw it into the special place behind the cap, into the frame of the car. You can do this by hand easily. Then you have a place for tow hooks. Tow chains are a little tricky--when I had to get towed (backed onto a pipe sticking out from under the driveway at a barn---it was weird), the tow chain hook was too big to fit through the eyelet, so we had to improvise by sticking a metal rod through the eyelet and wrapping the tow chain around and back on itself. Not the safest tow, but for the few feet I needed it worked.

Overall, it is worth the little inconveniences (no knob for A/C, weird locations for AC adapters, huge blind spots, seats that need cushioning, etc.) for the gas savings. If I commuted to another city to work, I would almost have to buy one of these. The gas cost is about 1/3 of our truck. We went on our 2,500 mile trip with 60 gallons of gas--about $240 dollars for gas. We couldn't have even taken the trip in our truck, because of gas costs. We save so much on gas that we are thinking of buying a Prius anyway (we both live less than a mile from work). The savings each month would equal several hundred dollars---almost a car payment.




Amount Paid (US$): 26500
Condition: New
Model Year: 2008