Glad you liked it Jerry! :D

Not to worry, if the next Prius is too much for you, there will be an Auris
following this year ;)

I'm still a very tech guy, and the next Prius is full marks in that dept!


Joćo Prates
I am the next Prius - Follow me
http://www.toyota-europe.com/cars/new_cars/prius/experience/index.aspx


-----Original Message-----
From: Prius-UK@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Prius-UK@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of JerryW
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 4:18 PM
To: prius-uk; Prius-Europe@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Prius-UK] 2010 Prius

i All

So, yesterday Sue & I drove over to Longcross nr Chertsey, a rather
down-at-heel testing track, to try out the new Prius.

Overall it was a v. pleasant evening, quite lot of sales-orientation but
all directed at how wonderful a car it was, not pressuring us to buy one.
They did not push the boat out but there were light refreshments etc
available and both of us thought it a v pleasant evening.

The star of course was the car, and I must say I liked it. There were 3 or 4
Prius in the marquees to pore over and sit in, one of which was
"skeletonised" so you could see what was going on under the bonnet, inside
the doors, under the seats etc. And about 15-20 to drive. Every one of them
was a T-Spirit, so no 15" wheels in evidence and they all had the full spec.
and more.

After a couple of presentations, you got to drive the car round the fairly
twisting track maybe four or five times, in company with a Toyotaperson who
explained the car and told you where to go etc. Sadly they were not very
Prius trained and repeated many old canards to me such as "B-mode
regenerates more" and "the more lttle cars (on the mpg display) the better,"
and more.

But the car was the star, and I must say I was quite impressed with it. It
felt like a very solid, well set up car to me, more so than my beloved Prius
II, and it had some very neat tricks like the head-up display (HUD, Jules)
and a total of four different driving modes (EV, Power, Eco, none of the
above) which made life interesting. The car feels distinctly wider and more
spacious than the existing one, but I am not sure why because apparently it
is only 15mm wider and 20mm longer.

Every performance parameter is bigger than my GII: engine size, bhp,
dimensions, 0-60 and mpg. I note however that the performance, in the life
of the Prius model, has gone up a whole lot more than the mpg has.

Summary:

+

Probably better looking (don't much care)
slightly "bigger car" feel when driving
quite a number of nifty gadgets, eg rear camera, adjustable HUD with speed,
eco-display and satnav. Not to mention fancy wing mirrors with heat and
indicator repeat

-

It is far more complicated a car than it was. There must be double the
number of buttons compared even to my car, never mind a Classic. I suppose
you would get used to them, but it would make the transition from, say, a
Mondeo to the Prius a bit daunting I think
I don't know if I can think of another significant drawback.. there might be
ramifications arising from the 15"/17" wheel options, particularly as it
appears the sunroof is only available with the 15" wheels "for homologation
reasons"

I must say I think Toyota have done yet another superb engineering job with
this car. So impressive. But it has moved upmarket and might now be
appealing to a different type of customer. I still wish they would just make
a very economical ordinary car. Despite my admiration I don't think I will
buy one, because it just has too much more than I actually want. I would
trade all the gadgets for an 100mpg get-you-from-a-to-b-car. A new Classic,
perhaps?

Regards

Jerry
http://lintonkent.org


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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