One man's new car will someday become another man's treasured junk. We have two cars coming up on 9 years old, and 1.9 new drivers (Kyla's only lacking the license, not the ability, and waiting on the appointment next week). So, we've been feeling the pressure to do something about the situation. We waffled on the small SUV, lusting over the ability to get to the snow without putting on chains. We checked out the hybrid SUV models, and thought about the new Ford. Somebody once said when a company has to tell you in their marketing that quality is job 1, it's a sure sign that it isn't. We sweated over Consumer Reports. We fretted over whether we still needed more room in spite of the looming empty nest. Somebody had to make a decision, and that person was Dara. As of this evening, the entire family now has something to fight over: who gets to drive the Prius.
It's cool, pretty much the bleeding edge of geekmobile. When you are near to the car, with the key in your pocket, it automatically unlocks as soon as you put your hand on the door handle. You start it by pressing the start button, not turning a key. The gearshift is on the dash and consists of a joystick thingy. The navigation console shows you what road you're on as you drive. Since I have the right kind of phone (Bluetooth enabled), I can make and receive calls through the car's speakers and microphone while the phone is in my pocket. Fortunately, a lot of the geeky features of the console are disabled while the car is moving, or diddling with them would be more of a safety problem than drinking and driving. Geeking and driving.
I hope I get to drive it one day.
2 comments:
Sounds like quite a ride, almost like the Jetzons car with wheels. I understand the hy-bred is really an electric motor powering the car and an internal combustion engine used to power the battery charger. With the west coast gas prices I bet they are very popular. You don't see many of them around here but in an effort to promote conservation they now allow all hy-bred models to use the HOV-3 lanes on the highways regardless of the number of passengers, saving gas is great but saving an hour or more on your commute to and from work is priceless.
Yes, these things are starting to become as common out here as our previously common vehicle, the minivan. There has been a lot of talk out here about learning from Washington's experience with the HOV lanes. However, that mostly centers around not allowing the Prius or the Honda equivalent into carpool lanes. So far, still not allowed here. The argument here is a) there are too many of the damned things here and it will clog the carpool lanes; and b) carpool lanes are there to encourage carpooling, and even when you're getting 50mpg with only a single person, you're still not close to the per-person-per-mile that a 3 person carpool is getting in almost any other car. I don't think it is going to happen here.
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