Toyota Prius Hybrid Test Drive - 5/8/08

Hobert Pruitt
Beyond Fossil Fuel Columnist

I had mentioned to my 14 year old son I was thinking about getting a hybrid vehicle and that was all it took for him to jump on the Internet to do research. I was very impressed with what he had found. The Toyota Prius seemed to offer the best price and gas mileage of all the others. I decided to rent a Pruis for three days to see how I liked it.

It was not as small as I thought it might be. The back seats had plenty of room for my six-foot one frame. The back seats can drop down giving you a fair amount of cargo room. The electric motor that provides the power to the drive train gave the car a surprising amount to get up and go. It seemed very strange not feeling the car shift through gears as it accelerated.

The car does not crank like a conventional car, you have a big on and off power button you hold down like you would a cell phone. If you just tapped the power button the Prius’s systems will only partially come on and you will not be able to shift into drive or reverse. We ran into that problem a number of times until we realized holding down the power button for a moment was the answer.

When you first power it up and the combustion engine is not required to charge the batteries or power the electric motor you wonder if the car is running or not. One way you can tell if the car is on, you can see the speed displayed. When you want to shift into gear, you move the shift lever to drive or reverse, and then the shift lever will pop back into neutral. The middle display will show if you are running on battery only or if the combustion engine is running to recharge the batteries. The Prius also has regenerative braking which also provides power to the electric motor. Also, while in drive you have a braking option on the gear shift, which the car will brake by itself when you release the accelerator and again providing electricity to the electric motor.

The brakes are very touchy, but it did not take long to get use to them.

The Pruis is very quiet; it makes you wonder if it is running or not. Sometimes you could feel the engine crank or see it running on the display.

The gas mileage was the most impressive part of the car. According to the computer I was getting around 46 mph in the city, but I was "hot roding" it some so I am sure I could get over 50 in the city if I took it easy. On the highway with some city driving I did get 48.5 MPG. I let my son drive it in the neighborhood some before I turned it in and for the three miles he eased around he got 71.5 MPG. I drove the car for 199 miles and had to add a little less than 4 gallons to fill it up, that’s 50 miles per gallon.

I have had some concerns about replacing the batteries in the future, but Toyota expects the car should go 150,000 miles before replacing the batteries, which I have seen could cost anywhere from $3000 to $5000 to replace depending on who you talk to.

Right before I wrote this article the Hertz rental office called me and asked if I wanted to buy the Prius I had just rented. I decide well OK, gas is only going to get higher and I can always sell the car quickly if I wanted to because of the extreme demand for these vehicles.

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