A review of my 2014 Prius V

It has been almost exactly one month since I started driving my new Prius V. I've driven to and from work, around town, and gone on a lengthy roadtrip - from Alabama to Indiana and back. So, time to put down some detailed thoughts!

So to start with some background, I have a 40-minute mostly-highway commute to my current job. My previous car was a 1998 Saturn wagon. My main reason for buying a new car was to see if I could cut down on the amount of gas needed to get to and from work. Prius is still topping the charts for miles per gallon, and Toyota has a longstanding reputation for making good cars. Therefore, I wanted a Prius. (I don't buy cars to make political statements and I don't care what people think of other Prius drivers. I am not them.)

But I didn't want the standard liftgate Prius. It's pretty obvious from the outside that there is no way I'll be able to see out the back of that from the inside, which is kind of important for things like left turns and lane changing. Style is great and all, but not if the back window is a slit. :p

Then one day I saw the Prius C. Same super high MPG, but with an actual back window! I test drove it and overall liked it, but the engine felt really wimpy, which was disappointing (though perhaps not actually surprising). It also felt much less like I was in a barrel, which was my impression from sitting in the liftgate Prius. I started making mental plans to buy one anyway despite the engine being less powerful than the Saturn.

Then my next-door neighbor argued in favor of the V. He used to work at a Toyota dealership and in his opinion, the price tag on the C is not worth the amount of car you get, and the V was the best option. I looked it up. Lower on the MPG, but lots of features and more space for when I need to do house moves or buy furniture and etc. Better engine than the C. I got one.

Things I like

It has millions of cupholders. Finally, I own a car where I'll never run out of places to put cups.

Technologically, it's a big step up from the Saturn, which has manual rolldown windows and a cassette deck. (Do they even make cars with manual windows anymore?) It has a big entertainment console with many buttons.

I can open the driver door without having to pull out a key. The manual indicates that this should also be possible for the other doors (I'm particularly interested in doing that for the back), but I haven't figured out how yet.

It can make tighter turns than both the Saturn and the 1988 Plymouth Voyager before it (and for that matter, the 1985 Camaro before that). This was something I definitely looked for in the newest car - after 20 years, I am tired of not being able to do u-turns.

The built-in braking safety features has already helped me avoid a head-on collision. Idiot was trying to pass several cars while he had no actual room to maneuver, and I had to come to nearly a full stop on the highway (from 60).

The moonroof that I paid extra for. I open that in the evenings when it's cooler, because I like being able to see the trees overheard as I'm driving along. I foresee some stargazing in my future (not while driving). A note: the actual roof doesn't open to outside air - it's just the shades that slide back and forth.

The back seats are independently adjustable like the front seats, instead of being basically a bench. It's unlikely I'll personally ever enjoy these, but nice to have for my passengers.

The dashboard is low enough for me to not feel like I'm in a car made for much taller people. (I'm not that tall.) It's a nice change from when I last drove a minivan. Getting in and out in general is very carlike rather than vanlike.

For the front two-thirds of the car, it's a lot bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside.

It has a rear outlet for plugging in electric coolers. That will certainly make long-distance food transport more convenient.

Fuel Efficiency Observations

I probably should've expected it, since the V's MPG is rated lower than the C's, but I am still buying more gas than I was aiming for. In the Saturn during a normal workweek and weekend activities, I would have to get more gas every 5-6 days. In the V, I'm refueling about every 10 days.

Interstate travel doesn't really save any more gas than in a standard car. When driving between Alabama and Indiana, I had to stop for gas the same number of times as I did with the Saturn (which is actually no slouch in the fuel efficiency dept). On the other hand, I did drive faster than I normally did in the Saturn. On the other other hand, based on the graphics on the V's console, fuel efficiency is actually the same at 80 mph as it is at 70 mph, which is never the case in normal cars....

I was hoping that the electric-only would really shine during traffic jams. I mean, on paper, you wouldn't need to use any gas at all as you coast along at low speeds, right? Unfortunately, the battery loses its charge quite fast, and then the engine has to come on to recharge it. You conserve the most energy at a full stop, and you have to coast at a speed of 8 mph or higher for the battery to charge. In all the traffic delays I was in on my roadtrip, we spent a lot of time doing 5, which seems to be the worst for battery drain.

The car is at its most fuel efficient when driving around in a city without going faster than 30 mph. At that speed, it spends most of its time running off the electric motor and hardly at all on the gas engine. I sadly don't live in such a city. Most of the time I'm going at least 40.

The V can compete with pickup trucks when the light turns green. It just isn't very fuel efficient when I do that.

Things I'm not as fond of

The back compartment is actually smaller than the Saturn's, with a higher floor. There's a pull-cover device that can be used to keep people from seeing your stuff, but when it's set up, the bar reduces the depth. The higher floor also means that it's harder to get large bulky items in and out (did I mention I'm not very tall). The Saturn also has a wide flat surface on the way in, which is great for sliding things, that the Prius V doesn't have.

It is still really hard to see out the back. The rear right blind spot is gigantic. It makes lane changes a major problem, and I spend a lot of time wishing that there was more window and less wall in that back corner. And here I thought that rear visibility was a step down when I went from the Voyager to the Saturn, but by comparison, the Saturn is much better than the Prius. Maybe ten years from now when I'm ready to buy the next car, someone will have made a hybrid with fuel efficiency like the Prius, but with real back windows.

The car came with three years of free Entune. I tried to use it during my roadtrip. Unfortunately, it requires Internet access via my phone, and my phone is old with a weak antenna. There is no such thing as signal in the hills of southern Tennessee. I don't spend a lot of time needing Internet features in my car on a daily basis, so likely I'll just let that expire when the time comes.

Things I Ponder

Would it be better or worse if people could actually talk to other cars on the road? Because, at this point, we've probably reached a point in technology level where we no longer need rely on the honk as our only means of communication.

On the pro side, there could be:

"Your tail light is out."
"You left your gas cap open."
"What's the holdup? Why's nobody moving?" "Because there's a wreck in the intersection."
"All y'all going the other way are about to run into a mile-long jam."

But then, on the con side, there would be:

"You drive like shit." "Fuck you."

Or, for that matter:

"Your tail light is out." "Your tail light is out." "Your tail light is out." "YES I KNOW!"

There could be a way to talk both to individual cars, and to lots of cars at once. But it would have to be quick to pick - trying to type in a license plate number while driving would be a no-go, I think.

Hmmm.

Gas Prices

I bought gas a few days ago for $2.499 per gallon, which was down from the $2.569 it'd been for quite some time.

The time before that was back in mid-October, for $2.379 per gallon, which was right before it went up to $2.569 and stayed there.

There are certain advantages to not driving more than once or twice a week. :)

Some thoughts about electric cars

The main thing that keeps me from considering an electric car as my next car: lack of feasibility for long distance road trips. They cannot presently go for up to 15 hours without stopping. I can see three possible ways to fix that:

a) Make a car battery that can last 15 hours without stopping. :p I assume this is unlikely, considering that laptop batteries only last for 2...

b) Make a car battery that can be charged back to full within 10-15 minutes. Most of the blurbs I've seen talk about 2-3 hours. I'm not going to pull into a battery station and sit there for 2-3 hours while it charges, when I can pull into a gas station and be gone again in 5-10 minutes.

c) Make it so that the car batteries are interchangeable and can be easily replaced. I pull into the battery station, remove my depleted battery, trade it for a fully charged battery, and get back on the road. This doesn't have to be free (I'd assume some sort of nominal charge if there's a station attendant that does this), but it also shouldn't mean actually purchasing a new battery at full price each time. It probably would require all the car manufacturers to agree on a standard battery design. Ideally, it should be simple enough that I can change it myself without being professionally certified in the procedure.

How about hybrid cars then? If the gas charges the battery, then the battery can last 15 hours, and then the only difference would be fewer stops for gas. I could do that.

Injustice

Cop: "Do you know why I'm stopping you?"

Me (what I actually said): "Umm ... ahh ... urk."

Me (what I should have said, now that I've had several days to think it up): "Yeah, because it's a smalltown speed trap, and I'm a non-local who didn't realize that the speed limit would suddenly drop from 45 to 20 for two blocks in the middle of a highway. And because I didn't do the obvious, logically safe thing of slamming on my brakes in the middle of a highway, I shall now be forced to give you lots of money. It might possibly cause some financial ruin, but hey, you just want my money and I'm a non-local so who cares."

Cop (after handing me the ticket): "Now, try to slow down."

Me (what I actually said, just before I went back to driving exactly the way I was driving before (because the 20 mph zone was over)): "Yeah, sure."

Me (what I wanted to say): "Up yours."

-.-

A simple, ordinary exchange

There is a T intersection on my way to work, with a stop sign for the people coming out of the stem of the T. 90% of people on the main road turn right, into the stem. Therefore, people turning left out of the stem tend to assume that everyone coming down the road will be turning right; some of them are so sure of this that they don't bother to stop at their stop sign.

I go straight. I have no stop sign. In addition to slowing down and checking for cars as I approach (and occasionally wishing that there was a signal for "going straight"), I also routinely ping the minds of the other drivers.

This tells me several things:
a) their approximate emotional state;
b) their intentions for the intersection - which basically boil down to "stop and wait" or "go";
c) their receptiveness to outside messages.

Some of them will go through no matter who else is on the road, and they broadcast that at high volume (read: they're assholes). Some of them are completely oblivious to everything around them because they're driving on autopilot, and therefore won't notice any outside messages from the ether any more than they'll notice anything else, and they'll also go through no matter who else is on the road.

Most of them are fairly calm and alert, however. I go over to their minds and suggest that they wait. Once I've passed, I thank them for waiting, both as a message and with a puff of "feeling of goodwill" (assuming that I'm in a reasonably good mood myself, at least).

People at work (that is, part of the 10% of people who go straight) talk about how common it is to have accidents at that intersection. I've not had any problems.

A funny thing happened to me on the way back from the grocery store ...

Today I saw a fire truck.

Its sirens were on, and its blinky flashy lights were blinking and flashing. Nobody was moving as it approached the intersection, but nevertheless it stopped at the red light.

This isn't unusual for a fire truck to do in this day and age. Back when I was a kid, emergency vehicles had every right to hit your car if you were too dumb to move out of the way. Park in an emergency no-parking zone and an emergency happens? Say bye bye to your car, and no you can't get them to pay for it because it was your own damn fault for putting it there.

I'm guessing people didn't like that much, and complained enough so that now, instead of barreling right through intersections no matter what light it is, they're all required to stop and look both ways before continuing on. An emergency vehicle looks really dumb when sitting at a full stop at an intersection with all of its sirens and lights going, but as I was saying, in this day and age it's normal emergency vehicle behavior.

So this fire truck stops at the intersection. Then it just sits there. And doesn't move. Nobody else does either, because, well, it's an emergency vehicle and we're supposed to all stop for those. After about half of the opposing green light time has passed us by, everyone apparently decides it's not going to move after all, and so they go back to normal driving.

THEN, right as its own light was finally about to turn green, it suddenly remembers: Hey, wait! I'm an emergency vehicle, and I'm on my way to an emergency! Lots of honking ensues, everyone swerves out of the way, and it finally barrels its way through.

I guess there's all kinds of being asleep at the wheel.

Followups

1. The empty restaurant building across the street from me now has a sign that says:

Coming Soon
Cajun Grill Cafe
Bourbon Chicken !!

So. More chicken then. But at least it's not the battered and deep-fried kind, like the last two places (that failed there). If it's anything like the one at the mall food court, I'll probably eat there regularly. If not, well, I hope it will serve actual Cajun food, which the mall food court doesn't.

2. I stopped using the shoe lift.

You know how when one of your joints needs to be cracked, it feels sort of itchy and naggy (and eventually stabby) until you crack it? Well, that's what happens to an undefinable spot in the back left of my skull after a few weeks of shoe lifting. The chiropractor couldn't reach it. The backup chiropractor couldn't either. It takes weeks after I stop shoe lifting to work out on its own.

I think I'll save the shoe lift for times when I'm doing lots of touristing.

3. She is a dear, sweet little old lady. She was retired and gone, but says she found it not to her liking. Now she's unretired and back, and watching over us all once more.

4. Good things that have ended sometimes have epilogues and sequels.

Business at their wholesale seafood market is slow but growing steadily. The bun that came in February is now in China. The bun's brother, who was in China, is now here. A few of the original takeout customers have indeed found their way there. And apparently my Mandarin has improved due to those eight months of being unable to communicate with the new takeout staff otherwise.

5. The traffic light that hates me still hates me. For a while I was driving through the shopping center to go through the crosslight without having to make a U-turn. Then for a while it looked like it had changed its ways - so I lost the habit of driving through the shopping center. But it was all just a clever ploy! Now, this past week, it's back to the same inappropriate redness as before. T.T

6. Last year I was paid to skulk around a dormful of sleeping children. Last week they paid me to do it again. Next year I'm penciled in to do it a third time. Who says peace of mind is priceless?

7. Not only can I touch my toes without warming up, after today's yoga class I could touch my thumbs to the floor! Yay progress! :)

Littering

Dear GA License Plate #ACP-8408, a light brownish Toyota Camry who threw something white and fluttery out their passenger-side window while crossing the Roebling Bridge at 3:53pm today:

The world is not your trash can.


Signed,
The Saturn behind you

-.-

Cars have body language

Freeway driving is a bit like playing asteroids, especially when there are four or more lanes to each side. Fortunately, despite the fact that it sometimes seems otherwise, cars only go in a few specific directions rather than every which way.

Unfortunately, unlike asteroids that only move based on inertia, they can slow down, speed up, and change direction, sometimes for no apparent reason.

Fortunately, this doesn't generally happen without warning. Even when they aren't using turn signals, cars have body language. By watching how they slow down, speed up, tailgate, drift, or "lean" to one side of the lane or the other, it's possible to know what they want to do (or are about to do). And by watching all of the other cars around them, it's also possible to know why.

Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to read car body language. Most people probably aren't even aware of it - it's not exactly required knowledge for obtaining a basic drivers license. Even people who do know aren't necessarily always paying attention at all times. It's therefore good to assume that everyone else on the road is oblivious until they prove otherwise (or are a professional trucker).

Parodies of parodies

Road trippin' across America
In my station wagon at 80 miles an hour!

Road trippin' across America
Boldly going northward, I think my back's gone sour.

-- parodied from the chorus of Star Trekkin',
which is itself a parody of Star Trek:
The Original Series by The Firm.

Most people in the U.S. know of the song from Dr. Demento's radio show. For anyone who might've never heard it before, here's a video version that reinterprets it for Stargate: Atlantis (another parody!):



Mmmmm... wraiths. I would so be a wraith worshipper. While I'm waiting for that to ever happen, I'll be driving 800+ miles today. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves while I'm gone. :)

The body language of roadside deer

If the deer looks up and is facing the road, get ready to slow down. Watch for tensing of its shoulder muscles, whether its head sort of drops down like it's going to spring forward. Inexperienced deer will often stand in that position being indecisive until the last possible minute, and dart out just as you get there to hit them.

If the deer looks up, is facing the road, but doesn't tense, it won't bolt. It might stand there and watch you pass, or calmly turn around and amble back into the trees. (But slow down anyway, just in case it's insane.)

If the deer looks up and is faced away from the road, it won't run out in front of the car even if it does bolt. However, there might be more deer on the other side of the road that will bolt after the first one. Those will be trouble. (Don't honk at them. It just makes things worse.)

If the deer doesn't look up at all but just keeps on blithely grazing right next to the road, it's so inured to cars that you can ignore it. Deer on I-16 (between Savannah and Macon, GA) are like that. Some of them even know how to look both ways before crossing the highway.

Some evenings as I drive through the multitudes of deer on my way home, I wonder: why hasn't anyone domesticated them like we have the cows, pigs, sheep and goats? Why isn't venison sold at every grocery store? How did they get to stay wild and everywhere?

The Price of Gas

Back when I bought my car in 2001, I could fill the whole tank on $12. Even that was expensive compared to ten years before that, when $0.99 per gallon was average and $1.20 was high.

Now it's $2.92 per gallon and closer to $30 for the tank. I no longer drive anywhere except for work, home, and the grocery store in between. Anything else counts as a major expedition, where it's a waste of gas money if I don't have at least three errands along my well-planned route. My neighborhood has shrunk. Stuff that was "close" before is now "far."

On the bright side, I walk more than I did before. It's good to get more exercise, and sometimes I see things I wouldn't from a car.

The Traffic Light That Hates Me

There is a traffic light that turns yellow the moment it sees me coming from around the corner a block away. By the time I get there, it's red. Then it makes me sit at an empty intersection before it finally decides to let me through.

Nothing else can possibly be triggering it. Oftentimes there is no other traffic at all - not on my road, and not on the crossing road. Just me and it.

I've found one way to defeat it at its own game. Instead of sitting there waiting, sometimes I'll turn right. Then I make a U-turn. Usually it tries to turn yellow in my new direction, but it's too late and then it doesn't matter anyway because I can just turn right again in the empty intersection no matter what the light says. Hah! Take that, Traffic Light That Hates Me!

Dinging Dump Trucks?

All while I was driving on the causeway today, I heard a bell. It didn't fade into the distance like it would've had I passed it. It was too high pitched to be ringing loudly from a great distance. I was in the middle of a salt marsh, which does not contain anything that rings. It sounded like it was attached to my car, but wasn't coming from anywhere inside, because I could dim it down by rolling up my window. There were no obvious bells attached to the dump truck in front of me.

So I spent the entire drive thinking, "what the frell is that??"

Then I got on the island and to the intersection with the gated community. The dump truck in front of me turned right, and I turned left. No more bell.

Random Roadside Seeds

By that I mean, my thoughts on the way to work today were seeded by stuff I saw on the side of the road. It was definitely a free association day - every five minutes I would see something new, interrupt whatever train of thought was in progress at the time, and take off in a completely non sequitur direction.

It's been like that all week. I've been paying more attention to the outside world while I drive lately, instead of just musing on whatever is on my mind. Maybe it means there isn't anything on my mind at the moment.

Things I thought about, all seeded from seeing a young Hispanic boy on a bike who was riding along in the grass at the side of the road, with a full plastic bag on the handlebars (probably groceries).

a) It was a narrow road with no shoulder. The fact that Savannah isn't terribly bike friendly, nor pedestrian friendly for that matter. There are places with sidewalks, but those end in strange places. Yet people do manage anyhow. I have one coworker who rides her bike to and from work every day, covering 35 miles. Obviously she's a lot more physically fit than I'll ever be.

b) Being in a safely boxed metal frame rather than right out there with nothing between me and the pavement, like I would be on a bike. Or motorcycle. I got to ride on the back of a motorcycle once, and that was what struck me - how close and immediate the environment around me was. It's part of the attraction of riding on a motorcycle for a lot of people. For me, however, I would definitely need a face shield, because I can't take the wind blowing right at my face at 60 mph. Gas might be cheaper though.

c) Tip jar thieves and honesty. Hispanics have always been honest while in the Chinese takeout where I work on weekends. 100% of all tip jar thieves I've ever seen were young black women. By contrast, young black men are almost always honest, and sometimes they even tip.

d) The fact that I've been planning to write a blog post about thieves at the takeout for my takeout blog. I haven't gotten around to it yet, and it's been nagging at me for weeks.