JASCO

Hybrid Cars Are Good

For the past few months I've been driving a 2015 Toyota Pius V

When I took my ill-fated trek to buy land, I took my mom's car. My old Saab 9-5 probably would have made the trip, but it would have easily been $100 more in gas. Plus, frankly, the 9-5 scared me every time I drove it. The now nearly twenty year-old plastic had been slowly breaking off piece by piece, the serpentine belt was due for a change, the front passenger-side tire was slowly leaking air. Every time I got in the thing I wondered if it was going to be the last. So taking the Prius just made me feel a lot safer. During the trip I ended up falling in love with it.

Something about it just clicked after the first hundred miles or so. I used to hate driving it, panged by the poor visibility, slow acceleration, and the general alien feel compared to all the other cars I had driven. It turns out when you properly adjust the seat the visibility issue mostly goes away in the V model. I test drove a traditional hatchback design and the rear-view mirror was as good as useless. The slow acceleration is not present at low speeds, due to the high torque on the electric motors, and it's pretty zippy when you put it into power mode. Once I got used to it, the alien feeling disappeared. I realized it wasn't a traditional car, and I shouldn't think of it as such. It was an efficiency powerhouse and should be treated as such.

Hybrids just make sense. Internal combustion engines are bad at being efficient at low speeds, electric motors are bad at being efficient at high speeds, why not get the best of both worlds and have both and use them when it makes sense. I regularly get 40+ MPG on most trips I take and it only takes ~$35 to fill it up when I do need to refuel.

The real game changer was when I mastered the regenerative braking.

When you "shift" to the B option, you no longer coast, you slowly decelerate and charge the electric battery. This is perfect for going down moderate hills, getting on the off-ramp, or going through moderate to heavy traffic. It feels just like shifting to a lower gear with a traditional gearbox, except for the lack of increased acceleration. Once you get used to it, it becomes second nature to tap down on the shifter whenever it's needed and shift back to the normal drive mode whenever it's not.

Not to mention that these things are bulletproof. You see them going for hundreds of thousands of miles without a lick of maintenance. It's an entirely belt-less system so on the off chance something does go wrong on them, you just have to undo a few bolts and unplug a couple of connectors.

My only gripe is that I wish it was a bit dumber. I don't like it constantly nagging me about leaving the door open if it's in drive, or honking the horn whenever it thinks you locked the key inside it, even though the key is in your pocket and you just used the button on the door instead of the fob. Generally I wish it just had a traditional, twist key ignition instead of a push to start, but it is nice not having to fumble with anything when you get in and out.

It's a hell of a lot nicer than my dad's new Ford Maverick hybrid. That thing feels like a confused, puebescent teenager. It tells you it's a truck but it drives like a horribly lifted SUV, probably because it is sharing a body with a Ford Escape. Every corner feels like you're about to tip over, and it lulls you into thinking it's a lot lighter than it is, which you only realize when you need to come to a stop. Plus all the nannies suck, the pre-collision assist often mistakes slight hills as cars and ignores actual cars that you might hit. I do not care for carplay, but I failed to get their built in bluetooth to actually work so was stuck using it.

I can just imagine my dream car having a slightly beefier electric motor to get up to 25 MPH and then a 1.8 Turbo charged 4-banger for anything above that.

And put it in a wagon, the boxier the better

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