I had the fortunate privilege last time I was in the UK of hiring a state-of-the-art Hybrid vehicle for the duration of my stay.The stay was originally planned to be just a couple of days. I came back from Saudi to pick up Moon who I'd left with my Mum and Dad in Manchester and then return to Saudi. But in the grand scheme of the 'Saudi Visa Saga' there were more delays and I ended up having to stay in the UK for a full two weeks. (Damn & Blast! What an inconvenience! He says with some measure of sarcasm.)
Well it was inconvenient in the sense that it was not a planned vacation; it rained almost daily for the entire duration of my stay, I was 'forced' to go shopping and spends lots of Sterling, and there were other less mentionable inconveniences.
It was perhaps a consolation that I could play the SuperHero Planet Saver for those two weeks by driving around in a Toyota Prius T-Spirit. I was lucky! I had in fact ordered a Golf automatic or equivalent from the car hire firm SIXT but instead of the super trendy Golf I got the 'short straw' equivalent.
During my 2 week stay I covered just over 1200 miles, driving about in cities and towns and doing a load of motorway driving. On motorways I usually did speeds of around 85mph. An impressive overall mpg of 51 was achieved with every tank fill.
It was a very comfortable car to sit in and extremely easy to drive. I found it quite roomy in the back. The sat-nav that was fitted wasn't to my mind very user-friendly and it took a while to work out how to operate it effectively. The fact that you can't add in a destination whilst in motion was for me an annoying safety feature.
When you put the car into reverse, you automatically get a camera rear view on your sat-nav screen complete with an intelligent guiding tracker. Good for those who like to be perfectionist at parking in tight spots. Most irritating though was the reverse gear internal 'warning' bleeper. It might be possible to turn it off - I'm not sure!
Some people remarked that it's a bit of an ugly shape but personally I grew to like the shape of the car. The boot size is small and if you're planning to go on a fortnight's holiday to the seaside with four persons you'll struggle to find room for four suitcases, coolbox, windbreak and Pikachu surfboard. There is a small compartment under the boot floor but it won't get your favourite picnic hamper set in there! I suppose you could purchase a special roof-rack for those 'special' summer holiday occasions. If there's just two of you, then you can put the back seats down and that will give you loads of room for taking such things as your old and non-environmentally friendly fridge-freezer to the recycling-tip!
Driving along in the T-Spirit you'll find your good conscience salved by the fact that you are spewing out around 30% to 50% less CO2 than most other cars on the road. It boasts a CO2 emissions output from less than 104 g/km.
And because Gordon Brown recognizes that you are being a SuperHero Planet Saver by owning one of these cars, you are kindly exempt from paying Red Ken's London Congestion Charge. More over, your annual road tax bill for the year will cost you the same as about 6 pints of Guiness in a trendy London pub. You may even find your car insurance will be lower too!
And urhmm, oh yes, if you do let's say about 15,000 miles a year on average and pay 95 pence a litre of fuel you will save more than 400 GBvsPS (Gordon Brown's very strong Pound Sterling) in petrol alone for every year of driving over and above a car that does 37 mpg average.
So, London residents and London commuters who travel by car will certainly find themselves saving quite a lot of money if they invest in a Prius
Certainly, if I was going to be working in the UK and needed a car, the Prius would be very high in my considerations. I was genuinely impressed with the car.
With the evident absence of comments after a month I guess perhaps nobody really likes the Prius then! :-(
Saturday 25 August 2007 - 07:38AM (GMT)
