Toyota Prius: Behind the Wheel Blog

Read our Toyota Prius news report here.

Here's a hypothetical that would do Geoffrey Robertson proud...
 
There's this bloke -- let's call him Subaru Man. He pulls up at an intersection next to a Prius. Both he and the Prius Driver are aware that this road merges from two lanes to one about 20 metres over the intersection. So do the drivers of all the cars queued up behind the Prius, but unlike Subaru Man, their time is not that precious that they can't afford to queue up behind others.
 
Subaru Man is holding three aces. He has all-wheel drive, all-petrol power and all-fired impatience.
 
Unfortunately for him, he's playing poker -- and the Prius Driver is playing Blackjack.
 
The Prius Driver is holding just two cards; the King of Hearts (familiarity with the traffic light sequence) and the Ace of Spades (at least common garden-variety reaction times).
 
Subaru Man -- already having dismissed Prius Driver as easy pickin's -- nudges forward in anticipation of a green light that doesn't happen. He applies the brakes and promptly loses focus.
 
Prius Driver has selected 'Power mode' and eased his right foot off the brakes, to hover over the loud pedal -- or rather, the 'not allowed' pedal, in a Prius. The Toyota doesn't creep forward because the cars are facing uphill.
 
Prius Driver offers up a prayer to the patron saint of guile, the light turns to green and FOOOM!! The Prius is past the Subaru like a flash of... like a flash of... like combusting kerosene. No axle tramp, no wheelspin, just 'unrelenting' torque from two drive units.
 
For the next five minutes, Subaru Man is clinging to the rear of the Prius like a dag to a sheep. Prius Driver, with judicious use of full throttle and sneaky traffic 'hedge-hopping' tactics, stays in front of Subaru Man who, now utterly humiliated, is The Biggest Loser for the week -- category: Wait Loss.
 
Eventually, Prius Driver turns off the road and returns to a mode of driving that's consonant with a sense of duty to the environment and a commitment to proper testing of the car's fuel efficiency. Average fuel consumption: 4.9 bleedin' litres per flippin' 100km!

Still!

It doesn't matter how careful or feckless you drive the Prius, it won't budge from that figure.

Back in the real world, it's increasingly apparent that the Prius is a good car in its own right. If it weren't a hybrid, it would still be a well-made car that's a veritable triumph of packaging. Name any other car under the Luxury Car Tax that can spaciously accommodate four adults (or two adults and three kids) and still boast a drag coefficient of 0.25Cd. The Prius is well finished and features doors that close securely with the minimum of manual thrust and a real sense of solidity. Add to those virtues the respectable luggage space, generally low levels of NVH (notwithstanding tyres) and smallish external footprint, and you have a very well conceived car in its own right. You could remove the NiMH batteries and replace the hybrid drivetrain with a conventional piston engine and transmission, to be left with a very acceptable car.
 
And that makes for an interesting comparison. Subaru recently introduced us to the Plug-In Stella electric vehicle and, at the time, we virtually described it as a high concept wrapped in a mediocre car. The Prius is somewhat the reverse of that. While the jury's out on the validity of hybrid-drive technology, the Prius remains a very good car you'd be happy to recommend to the right buyer.
 

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