I wrote this review of the 2001 Toyota Prius almost a year and a half ago (in September of 2000), and it received a lot of attention. According to Toyota's web site, there aren't any improvements (or even changes, for that matter) between the 2001 and 2002 models, so this review should still be fairly accurate.

Also, for full disclosure, I removed my gripe about the "B" gear -- evidently I misunderstood its function.

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I recently test-drove the Toyota Prius after placing an order with my local Toyota dealer. The dealer was very helpful in setting me up with a 24-hour test drive so that I could get a good feeling for the car and drive it around quite a bit. I mention this because I was equally interested in the Honda Insight in the spring, but after finally finding one in a dealership, the Honda dealer only allowed me to drive it around the block, and couldn’t even explain some of the features of the vehicle.

I’ve decided not to buy the Prius at this time, but am still very interested in the development of alternative-fuel cars, and I these are my observations about the vehicle.

Driving, Handling, Gas Consumption
From what I could tell, the Prius drove like any other car. It's a little slow on the acceleration from standing still, and the brakes are a little more sensitive than what you're used to, but both are easy to get used to. On the highway the car is certainly not underpowered -- it's easy to speed up and pass other cars as needed. During my 24-hour test drive, the car told me that it was getting around 35 miles per gallon, which is significantly below the reported gas consumption, but I may have been driving the car a little harder than usual.

Trunk Space
After seeing the miniscule amount of space in the Honda Insight, I was glad to hear that the Prius had a decent-sized trunk (not to mention a back seat!). I was very disappointed, though, to find out that the back seat of the Prius didn’t fold down to open up the trunk into the back seat of the car. I understand that the battery pack is mounted just behind the rear seats, but why is it located there? Couldn’t it be moved to a different place where it didn’t obstruct the space between the trunk and the back seat? This is an important feature if you ever use that space to carry anything large like bikes or skis.

Dashboard
I’m a user-interface designer by profession, and my biggest disappointment of the Prius from that perspective was the center dashboard. I liked the climate control module, but the knobs and buttons surrounding the digital clock seemed disorganized. As the car gets older, those buttons seem extremely limiting. Traffic and mapping seem like important features now, but in five years Internet access might be popular, and although your car has the display panel for it, the hardware is not expandable enough to accommodate new features. Aesthetically, the oval buttons reminded me (in a bad way) of the dashboard of a Ford Taurus.

Display Panel
The issue of the dashboard would seemingly be moot given the presence of the multi-information display panel. Unfortunately, the flexibility afforded by a digital screen seems to have eluded the designers, because most of the functions are accessed by the aforementioned dashboard buttons. The display allows users to change radio stations, but that’s about it. Otherwise it dedicates itself to monitoring energy usage, which seems to be more of a gimmicky sales tool than a useful feature. Furthermore, from a human factors standpoint, the screen is so deeply recessed from the dashboard that it’s cumbersome to reach inside the hole and press the screen.

I would propose enlarging the display panel and integrating the roles that the hardware buttons serve into the digital display. That way, Prius owners could have their display software updated on a yearly basis and never miss out on new features or functions.

Gear selector
I was very impressed with the basic styling of the Prius, both inside and out. The gearshift lever, however, sticks out like a sore thumb. Not only does it stick out from the dashboard at an odd angle, but it also blocks the driver’s vision onto the display panel. Either put a standard gear selector on the floor of the car, or if it has to be on the dashboard, come up with a better solution.

"Jesus Christ" Handle
This is a minor complaint, but I’m used to holding on to an over-window handle on the driver’s side of my Honda Accord, and the Prius didn’t have one. It seems like a small detail that could easily be added.

Cruise control
Cruise control is not available on the Prius. It’s an automatic transmission vehicle, and cruise control is included on the Corolla, a similarly priced car, so it seems like they could easily include it on the Prius.

My greatest disappointment comes because the Toyota design team seemed to have made a conscious decision to design a new type of vehicle, but in my opinion, they didn’t entirely succeed. The integration of a futuristic display with plastic hardware buttons is shortsighted, and the exclusion of basic features (cruise control, folding rear seat) seems unnecessary. I would have felt more comfortable with the Prius if Toyota had taken a Corolla and added a hybrid engine rather than trying to invent a new car and selling it to the public incomplete.

Amount Paid (US$): 19900
Model Year: 1952