Camry and Prius
I recently stepped out of two weeks in a Toyota Camry and into the start of a week in a Toyota Prius.
It’s amazing how close these cars are in price, and how far apart they are in character and gas mileage.
The Prius costs less than a Camry SE, more than an LE. The Camry SE comes with a four cylinder engine (optional V6), and with the automatic, it feels weak compared to the Prius. You heard me. The Prius’ CVT feels tight, when you keep it on Power mode the powertrain feels strong, and the Camry’s automatic is slow to react and keeps the gear ratios high, which keeps the engine out of its power band.
The Prius feels better than the Camry SE, but not as comfortable as the cheaper Camry LE, because Toyota tried to make the Camry sporty by stiffening the suspension. They succeeded in making it feel jittery; it corners well but doesn’t feel right. The Prius doesn’t try to be what it isn’t.
The interior of the Camry is definitely more upscale, but the Prius is more than good enough, and some of the stylists’ decisions will no doubt appear on other cars, later. I wonder if they’re using the Prius partly as a way to experiment on new interior packaging, too.
Overall, if you don’t make the mistake of pressing the Economy Mode button, the Prius is a pretty nice car to drive. In Power mode, it feels sprightly; and you gotta love getting a consistent 50 mpg in situations where a normal car, including the four-cylinder Camry, would be lucky to hit 23. The Prius neatly doubles the gas mileage of our 300M without half trying (around town, at least; on the highway, it beats our 300M, but not by the same margin).
I personally see nothing wrong with spending extra to get better gas mileage. It seems that self-proclaimed car guys have no problems spending large sums of cash to get the look they want, or more power, or more safety, but hate the idea of spending more to cut your fuel usage. Frankly, I don’t see how anyone can rationalize a Hummer H2 for city driving but not a Prius for the same city driving. (It’s different, of course, if you’re a paramedic in a remote stretch of Colorado.)
Anyway, I like the Prius – a lot. Part of it is my natural thrift and frugality, values which used to be positive virtues for Americans, but which seem to have faded from their favored place. When I have to hit the brakes for a stop sign, traffic light, or moron, I like knowing that I’ll be able to use at least half of the energy I’m losing (someone correct me if that number is wrong). I like having the engine shut down when I’m at yet another traffic light, instead of sitting there, burning fuel for no reason (I like start/stop systems as a compromise between the expense of a real hybrid and the waste of a real gas engine).
This car also has the solar panel roof. That’s an interesting “feature.” The main thing it seems to accomplish is being able to ventilate the car with the engine off; and I can start the a/c from outside by pressing a button on a remote control. Gotta love that on a hot summer’s day. I used to always wish for a remote control button that would lower my windows, so I could open up the car for a cooling breeze before leaving my office. Sure, VW lets you lower the windows with your keys, but you’re already there by then!
It takes a while to get used to driving the Prius. After a couple of days, a normal car feels strange.
As for the gas mileage, again, I’m getting a consistent 48-52 mpg, averaging 50, around town. On the highway I believe it’s supposed to get 48 mpg. Not bad but really, you get these cars for city and suburban driving. Diesels are nicely matched to the highway. By the way, the midsized Prius easily beats the midsized Fusion hybrid; Ford carefully advertises the latter as the highest-mileage sedan, and the Prius is a hatchback.
If you care, you can read more next week about this car, which is still pretty unique in the market, at acarplace.com or this Prius page. If you don’t, well, you can still stay tuned; I won’t bring it up again.
Actually, the Focus don’t have an hybrid, it’s the Fusion who got the hybrid and is the mid-size one ;-) but I take the Fusion over the Prius, to be different and to tease some Hollywood stars ;-)
Sorry, a sortakinda typo. You can take the inferior car if you want to.
The fusion’s American, there used to be a time when people valued that too.
Good point. I tend to forget that Ford’s American, you know, what with ol’ Henry supporting the wrong side in World War II and all. Of course that was a long time ago.
Was Fusion actually designed here? I lost track. Taurus is based on the Swedish Volvo design, but I suspect there was a lot of re-engineering here. Focus, as I recall, is Asian in engineering if not in construction. But yes, at least it’s made here.
Oops. Ford Fusion is made in Mexico.
Would that be the side the Japanese were on?
There is a reason to choose Prius over the Fusion. It’s the better car. Seeing as how most of the rest of the country has very emphatically stated that the imports are better cars and that is what they will buy (doublespeak for screw the American worker, our industrial base and the United States in general).
Down the street lives a guy who has chosen to put out a flag at sunrise and take it in at sunset. It used to be the United States flag but now that Obama is president he chooses to use a Scottish ST. George flag instead. His little way of protesting (his right) but I would prefer to have any veterans see Old Glory flying.
I have ridden in Prius’ and have been impressed I am also impressed with the way Ford is continuing to go about its business with the same disregard for the proliferation of models that doomed both GM and Chrysler. But then, so does Toyota.
I often wonder what the US manufacturers would have produced if they didn’t have to worry about their homeland consumers supporting foreign economies? Go back to when German cars were not as good as their press, British cars were strictly for the “sporty car” set who didn’t care if they ran in wet, no make that damp, weather and Japanese products were, well, Japanese, cheap in both price and quality, and not to be taken seriously around (that’s 1960 folks).
So what does all this prattle mean? I dunno myself. Guess I’ve been sitting in the background waiting for something to happen too long.
Oh year, almost forgot. Whoever came with the (hopefully) bad dope on the styling of the future 300’s should keep their thoughts to themselves. These things make the 1961 reverse fin Dodges look good……. Which ain’t easy to do.
One thing you have to say about Toyota, they make steady improvements in each and every generation of a particular model. Sounds like the Prius is that much better in many ways than the last generation. Especially where it counts most for that model: gas mileage.
It all just makes me hate Toyota that much more……. The only “good” news is that they have to recall 3.8 million vehicles for sudden acceleration/stuck gas pedals and the frames on the Tundras aren’t any more rust resistant than the 815,000 Tacomas they recalled/bought back last year. :)
I know that shouldn’t make me happy….but it does!
” It used to be the United States flag but now that Obama is president he chooses to use a Scottish St. George flag instead. His little way of protesting (his right) but I would prefer to have any veterans see Old Glory flying.”
So he’s patriotic as long as he likes the results of the last election?
I haven’t taken down my flag for ANY of the clowns in the White House. I didn’t even fly it at half mast as some people did — which incidentally I find insulting to those who DESERVE a half mast “salute.”
Between us, I’m getting tired of people abusing the flag for their petty political needs. Or is he one of those people who won’t let go of the notion that Obama isn’t a citizen, and no amount of birth records, newspaper archives, and such can convince?
Dave, I agree with you. I don’t like seeing the flag abused and certainly not as part of some political stunt. I’m not a veteran, but my Dad was, so I learned a little something along the way about what that flag means to those that have experienced the sacrifices to keep that flag flying.
An acquaintance of mine here in town who IS a Vietnam veteran flew the flag upaside down on the flagpole in front of his house the entire time Bush was in office just because he was p.o.’d about how the recount in Florida turned out in 2000. 8 years he had it that way. I told him how disappointed I was that, of all people, a veteran would do such a thing. He promptly told me what unnatural acts I could perform on myself. I can’t get through the Star Spangled Banner without getting a tear in my eye. I don’t care what your politics are, you should have respect for the flag that represents ALL of us.
When my wife and her niece went shopping earlier this year for, among other things, a new US flag to replace the very tattered one we took down, I insisted that they check where the flag they were looking to buy was made. I also told them that if they can’t find one made in the US of A, don’t even bring it home. I knew of several web sites advertizing USA made flags although I prefer to deal with local merchants. They found one with little problem at a Menards, which, although a chain, is a Wisconsin corporation.
BTW, they knew better than to look at Wal-Mart.
The neighbor with the St. George flag is a tad older and just as crotchety as me. He is an ex-cop and just maybe a tad racist. I have been told that he flew the St. George all during the Carter years too (before my time in the neighborhood).
I agree that the flag should not be used as a protest sign. It represents many things, not the least of which is a sign to our veterans that we support them. I will not fly the flag in any manner that does not show my allegiance to my country and my support for our veterans.
John, isn’t terrible how hard it is to find something in the stores Made in USA? Even the Chrysler products I have now were actually made in Canada and the two Mazdas my kids have were made in Michigan. Go figure.
A decade or so ago I didn’t really pay that much attention to where something was made. I think 9/11 changed my mind. I think sitting back and watching many of our manufcaturing facilities and the jobs they represent move overseas or down to Latin America is a big mistake. Sure, it lets us buy more stuff because things are cheaper, but at what cost? Jobs. Our standard of living. Our independence. We’ve spent the last two or three decades watching hosility grow toward U.S. companies to the point they’re going out of business like the Detroit 3 are. I really wish somebody in a leadership position in this country would start a “Buy American” movement. Watching Toyota displace our own shouldn’t be something we’re celebrating, but some people like it and want to stick it to the American companies. They’re undermining the whole country in the process.
Now I hear speculation that we may be on our way to a jobless recovery here in this country. Or at least a recovery that will leave people earning less money than they were for a decade or more to come. Unemployment may go down, but when people find a job it will be at a level under what they used to make and they’ll have to pay a bigger share of their benefits as well. Watching that kind of regression is getting old. One of the ways to turn it around is to Buy American and it starts with people like you settling for nothing less. I applaud you and intend to emulate you any time I can. But it’s getting harder to find consumer products actually made here. Pretty soon it won’t matter because none of us will be able to afford to buy anything anyway.
I do agree with you, Scott. On the other hand, while I am, I think, one of the few people still puts country of origin into car reviews, (when I remember), most people don’t care or prefer to buy foreign.
One of the strange things I’ve found is that people will not spend more to buy quality. Part of the reason, I think, is because corporations have made it very hard to do. In cars, of course, more money never meant higher quality. Your everyday Plymouth could easily outlast and out-reliability (I know that’s not a word) a Rolls Royce… and even brands that stood for quality would vary from one decade to the next, e.g. Mercedes, going from awful to terrific back to awful again, or Volvo, going from awful to terrific (and now being rather mixed). Certainly Chrysler is a major example of that – from 1956 to 1957!
But even in the more steady world of consumer products, you have companies that make both rubbish and great stuff – Nikon and Sony, for example – and it’s hard to tell the difference. With Nikon, it used to be that the pro grade was Nikon and the iffy stuff was Nikkormat (not that Nikkormats wouldn’t go the distance, because many did.) Then they went to E and F, and then… well, try to figure out their system now. I dare ya.
And then there are companies like GE and Amana, where you don’t know if what you’re buying is reliable and made in the USA, or reliable and made in China, or junk made anywhere. It’s like when Beech-Nut was taken over and they capitalized on their good name by selling poor quality baby foods (this is LONG ago). With the “winner takes all, no rules but profits” mentality, any good brand will become a bad brand. Anything made here will soon be made in China or Mexico or wherever labor is cheapest. No wonder we lost so many people — who can keep track? Buying quality and buying American make every purchasing decision twice as hard as just getting whatever’s cheapest.
The Prius, in my opinion, is a special case. First, they plan to make it here if demand keeps up. Second, the fuel savings, FOR THE CUSTOMERS IT IS DESIGNED FOR, will far outweigh the loss of jobs, in my opinion. Our economy and our security depends on an even trade balance, not the massive deficits we’ve been running. Oil should be a net export for us, not a net import; we have so much of it!
Consider that the lowest mileage on any trip I’ve taken so far in the Prius has been 24 mpg, and that was a three minute trip starting from a cold engine at 33 degrees Farenheit / less than 1 degree Centigrade. In my car that probably would have been single digits. In our minivan, less. When I drive the Prius hard, I can get it into the 30s once the engine is warm, if I really try; but usually it ends up at 50 mpg if I start with a warm engine (it is also designed to keep the engine warm even with the engine shut off, to maximize mileage). For suburban and city driving, it can give you an honest overall 50 mpg. That’s two and a half times more than our 300M or minivan, or for that matter a four cylinder automatic Camry! And what do you give up? Just trunk space, as far as I can tell. It’s very quick, it’s pretty comfortable, it corners well, it’s good on snow, it’s quiet, it’s fun to drive after you get used to it. Really, in my opinion, the only big drawback (other than battery disposal and possibly danger to EMTs in a crash site) is the fact that it IS made by a Japanese company in Japan, using Japanese components, and, when it comes down to it, I don’t like Toyota’s recent actions (particularly closing NUMMI).
That said — if the Prius continues to sell well here, American automakers will continue their hybrid and electric R&D, continue to optimize their gas cars, and cotninue to work with American battery makers. I personally believe that without decent hybrid sales, American automakers and battery makers will slack off and we’ll end up with no patents and no technology here for the future. That is, assuming that the peak oil / competition with China and India and Russia guys are right, and the unlimited supply of oil guys are wrong. Considering that the oil companies appear to have made their decision, and it isn’t based on unlimited oil…
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