5 Reasons I Love The Toyota Prius - And You Should Too!

25 Mar 2016

Alright alright, I know what you’re thinking, “This oughtta be a joke right? You’re not actually being serious?”, but surprise surprise, I’m here to defend the Prius and take all the bullets for it! So let’s get straight into the Top 5 Reasons I Love the Toyota Prius.

1: It's A Hybrid

Lets start off with the most obvious reason the Toyota Prius gets so much hate, but what I actually think is quite a redeeming feature of the Prius. There’s nothing wrong with it being a hybrid, in fact, why are we still making cars that aren’t? It doesn’t necessarily mean that we should abandon the idea of a petrol-powered, piston-pumping block of cilinders completely, hybrid technology can also be used to enhance the performance of a car, without many drawbacks. I mean, look at the McLaren P1, 918 and LaFerrari.
Now this is quite a personal opinion, and I don’t expect anyone to back me up on it, but hybrid technology doesn’t immediately threat the existence of petrol-powered engines, I mean, look at Ferrari, who don’t seem to be planning to make any sort of EV anytime soon.

2: It's The Ultimate Daily

Why is it the ultimate daily, you ask? Well let’s start off with my own personal checklist:

Does it have 4 or more seats? Check.
Does it have a big boot? Check.
Does it have cool gadgets/features? Check.
Is it comfortable and quiet? Well, I don’t know, but I’m pretty convinced it is.

And there’s more to it than just this list. Depending on where you live, there’s a roadtax discount, or sometimes no roadtax whatsoever, because it’s a hybrid vehicle. It also has a reasonably good MPG, with an average of 52 MPG.

And I know what a lot of folks are going to say; “So does the VW Polo Diesel”, but is it as spacious? No. Does it get you a tax discount? No. In fact, some places (including where I live), have higher taxes for diesels.

3: "It Saves More Gas For Us"

Quoting Roadkill’s co-host David Freiburger: “It saves more gas for us”.
Now this kinda goes with the whole MPG point I made before, but as with most hybrid vehicles, the Toyota Prius has the option to drive in full-EV mode to a certain extend. Meaning: more money for petrol, more petrol for awesome cars. And because hybrid technology is improving every time, the amount of miles you can drive in full-EV mode will improve further and further.

4: Not All Cars Need To Be Racecars

Ah, the petrolhead world.. Where power-to-weight ratios, BHP and boost-pressures are in every New-Years Resolution. Where everything can be reasoned with “Because Racecar, bro!”. But that isn’t always true. To me, at least. I don’t drive a car myself (inb4 people in the comments saying “You don’t even have a car, so you can’t say that”), but I find that when I’m in cars that are bland, and somewhat boring, there isn’t a need to drive agressively, there isn’t an urge to dare the driver to floor it. It just drives… relaxed.. Just drive, and drive, and not have a care in the world. But again, what do I know, I don’t own a car. But when I’m in, say, a Chevrolet Camaro Z28, it feels like you just have to floor it every single straight piece of road. So yeah, the Toyota Prius has got a James May Seal of Approval.

5: Racecar, bro!

Need I say more?

Comments

Priuses are not comfortable or quiet
2011 prius my father owns destroys my back in 20min
My moms 2013 prius v destroys my back in long drives about 2 hours
And i was complaining about the road noise the other day with my mom and she wished she had her 2006 lexus gx 470 back where no road noise could be heard XD

And for professional opinion u went to mr.slow, james may

I don’t hate the car I just don’t like the stereotypical owners…

The Prius is not as economical as other cars, for city cars they can achieve 70mpg, likewise diesel highway cruisers can get the same at 70mph. Driving a prius fast on the motorway eats fuel because of how hard the engine has to work.

A prius does so much damage to the environment during construction it never offsets this using its fuel savings.

Fundamentally its the least efficient hybrid setup. The most efficient way is a series hybrid rather than a parallel hybrid. A series hybrid is a car powered only by the electric motor, and the on-board petrol engine only charges the battery, this is the most efficient way of doing it because you can precisely control the combustion engine to be at its most efficient speed.

Hybrid is generally not a good choice for highway cruising but it’s very economical in a city. And vice versa, diesel highway cruiser is a bad choice for driving in a city.

Studies not funded by Hummer (the study that says the prius is so horrible for the environment was funded by Hummer) show that in the designed life of the car, it actually does less damage than a normal car.

The second generation Prius easily manages 45mpg doing 75mph

In addition, the Prius is a full hybrid, a combination of Series and Parallel, so it has an engine, a generator, and a motor, allowing it to be powered just by the engine, just by the motor, or a combo of both while using excess engine power to charge the battery.