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Posted September, 2006

Road Test: 2006 Toyota Prius

By Thomas E. Bonsall

Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A, has been a leader in the industry in developing hybrid technology and getting it to market. Almost every Toyota and Lexus line now offers a hybrid model or will in the near future.

For years, industry experts have regarded hydrogen-powered vehicles as the ultimate destination. I attended a meeting at a Volvo research center in Sweden as far back as 1991 when this future was predicted unequivocally. So it's not been a case of the industry not knowing where it's going; it's been a question of how we get there and what do we do in the meantime?

How we get to our bright, hydrogen future has proved to be a tough one. In 1991, they said it would take twenty years. That was fifteen years ago and the end is not in sight. The engineering isn't the problem. The manufacturers have engines that can run on hydrogen. The problem is the fuel.

There is probably more hydrogen on and around planet Earth than almost any other element save oxygen. Trouble is, unlike oxygen, hydrogen does not occur in nature as a stand-alone element. It is always paired with something, as with oxygen to make water, so it would seem a fairly straightforward and simple matter to just separate the two from a quantity of water and voila.

Except that it isn't simple at all. The best brains in science have been working on this problem for decades and still haven't figured it out. Oh, of course, hydrogen in liquid form is readily available in modest quantities, but existing methods of producing it make it prohibitively expensive. So they've got to figure out how to mass produce it cheaply. And that outcome could be decades down the road despite the billions being thrown at the problem.

The next question — what do we do in the meantime? — has been resolved. The industry has given up on the electric car and bet its chips on hybrid technology. Enter Toyota with its pioneering Prius, of which our test car was the second generation. Launched in Japan in 1997 and in America in 2000, the Prius was the world's first mass-produced electric-gas hybrid vehicle. It has since become the best-selling hybrid vehicle in the world. This year, it passed the half-million mark in worldwide with sales with 504,700 units as of the end of April — more than half of those ending up on our shores.

I have reservations about hybrid technology that I will get into after describing the vehicle we tested. For 2006, the Prius added several styling, safety and convenience enhancements.

Exterior changes include restyled headlights and taillight clusters, and a new front lip spoiler. The front grille has been updated with chrome finish on the center bar.

On the inside, the 2006 Prius features darker seat fabric and a black textured instrument panel center accent. The rear seat bottom cushion has been slightly repositioned to improve headroom and ride comfort. For the first time, due to strong consumer demand, Prius offers optional leather seating and a leather-wrapped steering wheel.

A new rear back-up camera is now available as an option. The rear camera automatically projects an image of what the lens can detect behind the vehicle onto the dash-mounted LCD display monitor when the vehicle is in reverse gear. The optional voice-activated DVD GPS navigation system has been improved, offering enhanced map quality, and estimated time of arrival display, and a route tracer function. The system also features a voice recognition search function, which allows entry of a destination through voice recognition while the Prius is being driven. The system can be set to operate in English, French and Spanish.

Prius buyers can also order new audio system upgrades that feature MP3-media capability and a mini-jack port located in the center console. The mini-jack port allows connectivity to most portable music players and allows users to listen to their portable music collection through the Prius' audio systems.

On the safety front, the standard driver and front passenger airbags are now equipped with an occupant classification sensor to help determine if the seat is occupied and if an occupant meets the adult weight requirement for airbag deployment. The front passenger airbag will only deploy when the sensor detects an adult passenger is occupying the front passenger seat.

A Tire Pressure Monitoring System is now standard equipment. The system can detect a significant loss in air pressure in one or more tires and alert the driver by a warning light.

The heart of the Prius is the Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD), Toyota's third-generation gas-electric hybrid powertrain technology. HSD gives the Prius acceleration comparable to a four-cylinder, midsize car, with zero-to-60 mph acceleration in about 10 seconds.

Prius not only provides the best fuel efficiency ratings of any midsize vehicle sold in America, it also returns an even higher combined mileage rating than any compact sedan sold in America. The estimated EPA ratings are 60 mpg in city driving, 51 mpg on the highway and 55 mpg in combined driving.

The base manufacturer's list price for the 2006 Prius is $21,725. Our test car drove well, was comfortable and oozed Toyota quality from every pore.

Okay, now let's get down to brass tacks. Why do people buy a hybrid, such as the Prius? The looks? The handling? The luxury? No. They buy hybrids for the fuel economy and pony up thousands more than they would pay for conventionally-powered non-hybrids. The irony is that the EPA mileage ratings are a joke.

Our overall gas mileage for the week we had our Prius was 37 mpg. That's a full third lower than the combined EPA rating. Our highway mileage was about 40 mpg (80 percent of the EPA rating), while our city result was a shocking 35 mpg — or barely half the EPA rating. Since 1982, we have tested thousands of cars and trucks of all descriptions, and have never observed a discrepancy this great between an EPA rating and the real-world performance. Worse, the actual mileage is scarcely better than comparable conventionally-powered compacts. To cite but one example, I have an elderly neighbor who owns a five-year-old Honda Civic that gets mileage comparable to the Prius.

In fact, we were so sure there was something seriously wrong with the car we contacted Toyota. Their response gave us another shock. Here is the email I received verbatim:

"EPA mileage estimates are not guarantees and no one (that we're aware of) achieves the EPA numbers in real-world driving. I've been told that the EPA test is about 30 years old and does not reflect modern driving conditions and speeds. However, it is the same test for everyone so it serves as a useful yardstick for comparing one vehicle to another.

"In the real world, most Prius owners report getting 45 mpg in everyday driving, compared to an EPA Combined number of 55 mpg. Enthusiastic driving, ethanol additives, hilly terrain and other factors can lower that number. We feel that if one had been driving a conventional car under the same conditions, a lower mpg would have been recorded than what the EPA estimated for that vehicle."

For the record, I have attained the EPA ratings in real-world driving with every new car I've ever owned. My natural driving style is conducive to good mileage. With many drivers it's the reverse. And the Toyota spokesman is correct about other factors that adversely effect fuel economy. (It works the other way, too. I once got better than 30 mpg on a tank of gas in a 1979 Cadillac Coupe de Ville on a trip from Reno, Nevada, to Sacramento, California. When leaving Reno, you make a sharp ascent to the highest elevations of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and, from that point, it's a long downhill swoop to Sacramento. The car practically coasted the whole way.)

Still, I refuse to believe that "most Prius owners" report getting 20 percent better gas mileage than I did. I suspect that most Prius owners either don't check the mileage regularly or are really ticked about the discrepancy between what they were led to believe they were going to get and what they are actually getting.

Toyota is required by the government under pain of death to post the EPA ratings on the window stickers. So, to that extent, the company has no choice but to publish numbers it knows to be inaccurate. But the company goes further than that. It publishes the EPA ratings in press releases and advertisements without any qualifiers. Their public web site brags about "the forward-thinking 2006 Prius with Hybrid Synergy Drive [which] combines a gas engine and an emissions-free electric motor to achieve amazing fuel economy…" As a result, an ordinary Joe walking into a Toyota dealership thinks the Prius will actually deliver the EPA figures or something close to it.

There is an obscure legal doctrine known as "merchantability." (If that's the way to spell it; neither my spell checker nor my unabridged dictionary recognizes it.) What it means is that there is an implied warranty that every product should be useful for its stated purpose. A hammer should be able to pound in a nail without breaking. A pail should hold water without leaking all over the floor. And if the hammer breaks or the pail leaks, you should be able to take it back for a refund because you didn't get what you paid for. End of discussion.

I see a similar issue with the Prius. Toyota knows two things full well: 1) people buy hybrid vehicles instead of conventionally-powered vehicles specifically for the greater fuel economy (and pay thousands of dollars extra for the privilege). And, 2) the EPA mileage figures that are bringing the customers in in droves are simply not achievable in the real world — or anything even close. Simply put, the Prius doesn't deliver what it promises and, as a result, Prius owners are not getting what they paid for. Toyota knows this and, in our view, has a moral (if not a legal) obligation to level with these buyers — before they sign on the dotted line.

While we have nearly always liked Toyota and Lexus vehicles (as anyone perusing our other posted reviews will discover), you have probably guessed that we cannot recommend the Prius. It's a nice enough car, but it simply fails to deliver the promised fuel economy.

Perhaps hybrid technology hasn't advanced as far as we had thought. R&D