First Drive Review
The Prius is squeaky new for 2004, except for the philosophy behind it and the 370 patents covering its mind-numbingly complex drivetrain.
This car is about being green on gasoline. The Prius's gas-electric hybrid powertrain is Toyota's best shot at an enviro-friendly sedan for everyone, not just fuel misers still mourning the demise of the Rambler.
How green is it? The official numbers were yet to be let out of EPA's bag at press time, but Toyota estimates 60 mpg city and 50 mpg highway.
Your mileage may vary, of course, but the Prius ranks Top Green on the official charts for five-passenger autos. And it stands as a heroic achievement over the 2003 Prius (52 city, 45 highway) and the Honda Civic Hybrid automatic (48, 47). Price stays the same at $20,480.
On the question of "What's important in a hybrid?" Toyota and Honda take very different approaches. The Prius can operate as an electric-only car at low speeds, whereas the appealingly simple Honda cannot. In fact, the Prius covers 3.6 miles of the 11.0-mile federal emissions and mpg tests with its internal-combustion engine off. This ability may not matter much in real life for suburban and rural drivers; their speeds and accelerations demand engine power, and the Prius starts its engine seamlessly whenever accelerator position orders more oomph than the battery-electric-motor team can deliver (the engine keeps the battery charged, too; hybrids sold in the U.S. cannot be plugged in).
The actual operation of this Prius system is so complex that Toyota doesn't even try to explain it. The power-flow charts given to the press, and the one that appears on the dashboard CRT, are abstracted to the point of c'mon, at least to the fervid tech boffins on this staff. But maybe we should take Toyota's hint and not get bogged down in the morality of AC motors consorting with DC cells.
Toyota says the new Prius accelerates from 0 to 60 in about 10 seconds. It feels slower. "Of course," Toyota replies, because the hybrid drivetrain doesn't hit you with torque peaks in every fixed-ratio gear (it's a continuously variable ratio drive system with no manual option). In computers we trust! Prius computers give you the combined best efforts of the engine and battery whenever you put your foot down. The big variable here is power available in the battery. Consequently, acceleration at any time depends very much on your driving over the few miles just prior. If you've depleted the battery, don't expect full acceleration. We road testers are still trying to quantify this perishable sort of performance. For now, let's just say the Prius is about fuel economy, and its acceleration won't make you think otherwise.
