I'm About To Find Out What Living With A Toyota Prius Is Really Like

Press car deliveries - for those of us in the media who are lucky enough to be on the receiving end of them - are usually a hugely exciting, smile-inducing, pant-wetting kind of affair. The process is simple: a kind soul from a manufacturer’s fleet company knocks on your door, hands you the keys to an expensive hunk of metal - insured and fueled up - and then asks that you leave him a few fumes in the tank for his return journey a week later.

If Carlsberg did employment, eh…

This week, though, was slightly different. Instead of the usual hellos and “try not to bend it” banter, the car delivery man gave me a knowing grin.

“How long have you got this pearl beauty for?” he asked.

“Three months”

“Well, this will probably be a bit lighter on the wallet than the GT86 we dropped off last time. Enjoy yourself”

And with that he was gone. Leaving me all alone… with a Toyota Prius.

Ask any keyboard warrior which car he or she likes the least, and the answer will probably be the Prius. They’ll claim that you’ll get better fuel economy in a diesel, that it’s not really an eco-friendly car (“do you know how many fossil fuels are burned in the hybrid production process?!”) and that it won’t be long before the CVT transmission breaks you. And your soul.

But is the Prius really as bad as they say? Surely the fact that they’re so visible in cities like London and San Francisco means Toyota is doing something right? Or are we all victims of argumentum ad populum?

For the next three months, the Car Throttle team and I will attempt to dig down into the murky world of hybrid ownership; whether the Prius will save us money on fuel, whether it makes for a suitable production crew car, and whether it’s possible to drive one without wanting to spontaneously combust.

My question to you: is there anything you specifically want to know about the Prius? Let us know in the comments - we’ll be brutally honest about our quarter with the car, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll come away from the experience liking the Prius just a little bit more. Yo.