I've been very interested in the technology ever since it was first announced in mid-1997. I've wanted to do my part to help air quality in the place where I live. I'm a technophile. I have a family and I sometimes need to drive three children around. Add all these together and this car was an easy choice to make.

I've had my Prius since the start of 2001 (one month of driving and 650 miles driven at this time, average MPG is just over 44).

This car is such a pleasure to own. As others have pointed out, you can make driving into a game of "get the best gas mileage". Having real-time readout on the current MPG is quite entertaining. You can easily see how your acceleration is hurting your MPG, or how traveling down a small slope really helps. BTW: I live in a fairly flat, urban location, not as congested as Tokyo but close to ideal conditions for this car's operation.

Good points:
* California rated as SULEV (super, ultra, low emissions vehicle). The only rating better than that is a ZEV (zero emissions vehicle). If everyone drove cars with this rating, air pollution from cars would NOT be a problem in any urban area (bold words but I think they are true).

* At low speeds or with very slow acceleration, you can run the car on battery power alone. I don't know how long you can do this before the car computer starts up the gas engine to recharge the batteries. I would guess that translates to an ideal (for this car) 60 MPG. I don't have the patience to do this. To "kind of" keep up with the other "normal" cars around you, you will need to accelerate harder and that gets the gas engine engaged within a couple of seconds. Still, its a lot of fun to play with this. Driving sure is more enjoyable for me when its a game.

* Very quiet running vehicle. Playing music inside the car that has subtle dynamics and very quiet parts is feasible in this car. As a fan of Brian Eno, I appreciate this. As it happens, you also get the same quiet from a high-end luxury car that costs $40,000.

* Center/top dashboard digital display of speed. It took a few days but I like it where it is. My eyes have to make only a tiny motion to determine my speed AND I don't have to do any analog to digital conversion to find out if I'm going over the speed limit. I'm not sure it is the right place for the "gear" display or the trip mileage display but those are minor issues.

Bad Points:
* Controlling the radio is really painful. Useful buttons are hidden by the "gear shift". Changing stations from one pre-set to another can only be done by the touch screen display (which means taking your eyes off the road!). Why the designers devoted 4 real buttons to features that have no use (on my car) and would only be used rarely even if they did operate (the TRAF, MAP buttons) is beyond me. THOSE features should be accessed from the touch-screen. The frequently used radio buttons should be real buttons so you can press them without having to look at them. Good thing I don't change radio stations very often and the CD player works very well, otherwise I'd be quite annoyed).

* Acceleration is "wimpy". You aren't going to impress the guy with the Porche 911 that's for sure. I comfort myself with the following thoughts as I drive my Prius: 1) Heavy acceleration is bad for the air and wastes gas, 2) Accelerating fast usually means you get to the next stop light/traffic jam sooner. 3) Relax, you aren't in a hurry. A Prius can be good for your spirit, but only if you let it.

* Braking takes getting used to. The Regenerative braking system works fine, but if you need to slow down faster, suddenly the physical brakes start to be felt and you get a lot more braking than your small additional pressure on the brake peddle would warrant (compared to a normal car). I really only noticed this the first 2 days I owned the car. Now after a month, normal cars brake weirdly to me.

Notes: I have never used the "B" mode of the car. I don't expect to either. In normal driving, if you take your foot off the gas pedal, it starts to slowly drain some energy from the wheels back to the battery. This makes sense to me based on my driving experience.

When I start up the car, it always runs the engine for about 5 minutes. Gas mileage is always pretty poor for this initial interval. Only on trips longer than 5 minutes do you start getting really good gas mileage. This maybe related to how "warm" the engine/battery pack is. I use my car two times a day separated by a 12 hour interval (approximately).

I have never seen the battery indicator change. It seems like the Prius computer always tries to keep the batteries fully charged except when I am really accelerating the car. I'm not sure I agree with the internal logic of the system but for now, I'm assuming the Toyota engineers know more than I do.

Amount Paid (US$): 21000
Condition: New
Model Year: 2001
Model and Options: CD player installed