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.

The real safety problem is the loose nut behind the wheel

You could ram every conceivable safety device (and a few currently inconceivable ones) into a car, and it won’t change the fact that someone out there will figure out how to get themselves killed in it. No matter how hard you work to idiot-proof something, the only thing you’ll really achieve is an improved idiot. I’m sure there’s someone out there who could figure out how to kill themselves in Knight Rider’s K.I.T.T. when the car was driving it for them.

As nice as all these wonderful safety items are, despite all they’ve achieved in terms of saving lives, they’ve also served to increase the road-going I.Q. (Idiot Quotient). Remember what Einstein said – “The only difference between genius and stupidity is that genium has limits.” Ron White added his own corollary to this – “You can’t fix stupid.”

Now, I’m not against adding safety features – I’ve been buckling my own seat belt since I was strong enough to overcome the spring in the retractors, and I never leave the driveway without it on. ABS, airbags, TMPS, stability control, they’re all very clever and nice to have, but does that mean I think every car should be forced to include an electronic nanny?

You know, it used to be that folks actually knew how to drive, and could actually get around in bad weather in a rear-wheel-drive vehicle with little to no weight on the back end (like the 1978 Farimont wagon my mom had years ago – it fishtailed going in a straight line down a dirt road in the middle of summer). We didn’t NEED four wheel drive, front wheel drive, fancy traction control systems, or any of that. As my father used to say, just because you can GO in the snow, doesn’t mean you can STOP. Sadly, too many people are too stupid or oblivious to realize/remember this.

The two main problems these days are:

1. Driver education in the U.S. is a joke (I’d be willing to bet that anyone who actually took the time to read the owner’s manual for their car and pay attention to the signs when riding in the car with their parents could pass the licensing test in most states without taking any of the courses). Also, graduated licenses for teenagers don’t seem to be doing much except generating repeat business for the DMVs every time the kids change to a different license level. Why can’t the behind-the-wheel training and test be like the Bridgestone Ice Driving School and the Skip Barber Racing School? At least people would know how to handle their cars in bad weather.

I spent an entire quarter year in driver’s ed, and I could have just read the driver’s manual, cut class, and still passed the test. I also fervently disagree with the idea that a kid with a learner’s permit should be prevented from driving at night – rather, I think they be REQUIRED to take some of their behind-the-wheel training after dark. The first place I ever drove myself after getting my license was to an evening Jazz Band rehearsal in High School (rural area where it actually gets DARK at night), and let me tell you, it’s a whole different ballgame when you’re depending on those two bulbs on the front end of the car to see by instead of the big one in the sky.

2. The other big problem is people not staying off the roads when the weather is too bad to drive in, and that’s because their employers refuse to close. Where I work, they never close for engineering folks (like me). There have even been times when the state has been hit with a snowstorm severe enough to declare a state of emergency and a travel ban (meaning if they catch you on the roads, it’s an arrestable offense). The last time that happened, 50 people drove to work at my company. When coroporate policy is that “we don’t close. If you are not comfortable on the roads, you can stay home but it comes out of your vacation time”, people feel pressured to go in anyway, and then you get roads clogged not only with the weather, but people who can’t handle the conditions but are out there anyway, and the result is chaos.