Testing the Prius

August 28th, 2007

Got a spanky new Prius Spirit this morning on a test drive until Friday. This is the the top of the range Prius at the moment with all the toys – CD-changer (though strangely my test model doesn’t have one), GPS, rear parking camera, bluetooth phone integration and an auxilary port for my iPod (thus I don’t care about the CD changer).
I currently drive a 225hp Audi TT convertible – the original one with the turbo charger. This is quite a change. First impressions are:
- All the toys work and it’s wonderful to have them play together. Phone calls go quite for a moment so I can hear the GPS directions – I get traffic updates and GPS sync is instantaneous
- The car has a little more room than the 2 seater convertible – well about 600 times as much space I suspect
- The switchover from electric to petrol is fairly smooth though the petrol engine seems to kick in all the time. There’s some “use electric more” button but I haven’t played with it yet
It’s not a zippy as the TT but not bad – for in town driving this is all I think I’d need.
The downside is that damn thing drives like a toyota – which means there is a real disconnected feeling from the road – I drift over speed bumps and around corners – it’s really point and go and instead of any real driving experience.
Why am I even thinking of the jump? In a word – money. I won’t pay the congestion charge in London and I plan to drive there a lot – also I save real money each month because insurance becomes cheaper and such.
This is just my feeling for the first 5 miles of driving about home. Have a big 100mile each way trip to Ipswich planned for the morning – will update my thinking then.

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