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Comment by gcanyon | Hacker News Reader

The new Prius is really good-looking (to my eye at least), especially in person: I don't think the photos (I've seen) do it justice. Fun comparisons to the car Burt Reynolds drove in Smokey and the Bandit: Compared to the 1977 Pontiac Trans Am:

   - The Prius is as fast 0-60 (~7 seconds)
   - The Prius has nearly the same top speed (~115 mph)
   - The Prius is 4x(!) as fuel-efficient (57mpg vs. 12-16mpg)
   - The Prius has all the modern stuff: air conditioning, antilock brakes, airbags, crumple zones, information display screen, backup camera, proximity alerts, etc. etc.
   - Adjusted for inflation, the Prius costs almost exactly the same

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The new Prius looks good, but I love my old Prius’s spacious hatchback. With the backseat down we can stick 3 giant dogs back there. I don’t know if there’s a hybrid with similar internal space.

I got my 65" TV in the back of mine, although it was a tight fit.

I fit a fully assembled entertainment center in mine. Only an inch or two to spare in every dimension but it fit!

RAV4

I wanted to like the 2024+ Prius, I really did. I was in the market for a new car anyway, so I went and test drove one (not that I could have got one right away, at the time). Takeaways...

- it drives really nice with plenty of power

- the "gearshift" (not that it is one, but that part of the UI) is nonintuitive

- the interior looks smaller than it is, due to massive A-pillars and little to no rearward visibility

- it looks much better than past Priuses, but the rear door handles single-handedly put back the "dork factor"

None of that would have mattered that much, but the dealbreaker: Trunk space. I mean, space to load stuff when there are already 4 people in the car so you can't just fold down the back seat. That trunk floor is high. Folded it up and what's underneath? A styrofoam spacer matrix! WTF? Why not a spare tire instead (you don't get one)? I can imagine an ugly hack, tearing all that out, just to get a bit more trunk space but really? My only guess is that the Prius Prime's extra battery goes here, and they don't want to have it have less trunk space than the regular Prius.

We are (by choice) a one-car family and we have two kids. When we travel we need a certain amount of trunk space, and the Prius doesn't have it. Aside from that, the Prime would have been lovely - enough battery to do your around-town driving entirely electrically! I never even thought of the "no heat" angle.

> None of that would have mattered that much, but the dealbreaker: Trunk space.

I hear you. I got a 2022 Prius Prime and I was disappointed with the smaller trunk space compared with the 2010(ish) Prius I had before, but I still went with it. However, my understanding is that the newer models somehow have even smaller trunk space space. At least that space under the trunk floor is filled with batteries in my case.

While I'm happy enough with my purchase, I suspect I won't be getting a Prius in the future. If I want a PHEV, I might look at the Rav4 Prime, but I think I'm more likely to look for a full EV when the time comes.

Oh wow, the 2024 Prius Prime has a full 3 seats in back. When we were Prius shopping in 2018, we were disappointed to learn that getting plug-in capability cost an extra $10K and removed the rear center seat. We ultimately just bought a "regular" Prius. I'm sure we _would have_ figured it how to install a car seat in such a tight space, but I don't regret missing that frustration.

Was the RAV4 bigger than you wanted? Solves the space issue and the footprint is not much more than the Prius.

Doesn’t sound as cool though. Maybe the Mustang team was onto something when they were playing supplementary fake engine sounds in the cabin speakers

Will people always think vroom vroom sounds cool? As far as I'm concerned, we can't get rid of it soon enough. When I rent an ICE car, I'm always annoyed by the engine revving sounds.

I mean, I’m not really a fan of the spaceship whine that the newest Honda CR-V models put out in electric mode. It’s going to be hard to please everybody on this planet.

I’d much prefer to hear a car coming than not, personally.

The fake engine sounds played through the cabin speakers don't help with that.

Could you imagine if the Ford Model T had coconuts installed to mimic the sound of a horse's feet?

Or a pile of manure in the trunk to simulate the smell.

I’d much prefer to smell a car coming than not, personally.

Dank smells save lives

The problems with the Prius are basically:

  - Terrible in snow and ice
  - No way to defrost your windshield, unless you're already driving
  - Poor rear window visibility

If not for those things it would be great, but unfortunately they've made zero progress on fixing any of the core issues for the last 25 years. The new models definitely do look cooler, and I appreciate that they accelerate faster, but I personally care much more about the stuff that could potentially kill me when I'm driving.

> - No way to defrost your windshield, unless you're already driving

I have a 2022 Prius Prime, and I am moderately sure with the car on and in park I can press the front window defrost button, and the ICE will turn on and start blowing hot air on the front window.

Also, while parked and plugged in at home, I can use the remote A/C button to start heating the cabin and front windshield while clearing off snow and clearing the driveway, and will be powered from my house. I'm not sure if this also works without being plugged in.

Can confirm, I have a 2017 Prius Prime, I keep it set to prefer all-EV driving, but I just got in and turned on the defroster to melt some frost off the windshield, it switches on the ICE engine. My only complaint is that it is not terribly smart about turning it back off during the same session of driving, if I turn off the defrost. I think in theory the heat pump would be able to provide the heat to do the job, but it'd use the charge in the traction battery up quickly...

It has been my experience that if the ICE engine in the Prius Prime switches on for the first time for any reason, it prefers to remain on for several minutes at a minimum, no matter what. I have a theory for why this happens, but it is purely speculation on my part.

> - Terrible in snow and ice

I don’t know what gave you that idea, unless this is a complaint about FWD vs AWD. They do fine around here in snow and ice.

Snow and ice performance is primarily (by a wide margin) about the tires. Next is the diffs and/or traction control for keeping both wheels moving when one starts slipping.

A Prius on snow tires does about as well as any other common FWD car.

Ours with snow tires does great. Most people probably don't have snow tires though, and they may have tires that perform worse-than-normal like LRR tires or full summer tires.

Snow tires are great on all FWD and are probably way cheaper than buying a new AWD car.

I expect they are referring to the traction control system. On ice, it's really hard to get started moving when it's constantly kicking in. If you're trying to get across one or more lanes of traffic to turn left (driving on right), then you can be in danger of getting hit unless you leave a lot more time to get across.

There's a hidden procedure to disable it. I keep it saved in a note in my phone and have needed to use it one (1) time ever.

- Press Start button twice.

- Push accelerator to the floor twice.

- Push and hold brake pedal and shift into Neutral then release brake pedal.

- Push accelerator to the floor twice.

- Push and hold brake pedal and shift into Park then release brake pedal.

- Push accelerator to the floor twice.

- Start car.

You should see the Traction Control warning light stay on to signal it’s deactivated. It will automatically reactivate when the car is restarted.

If you move the stick Down, R, Up, L, and hit Y, B you get mega turbo

I own a Prius and live in Vermont. It does just fine with snow and ice. As others have pointed out, proper snow tires make a huge difference, way more than any car tech. I also think the newer models have AWD as an option.

To defrost, you can just turn the car on, switch out of EV mode, and turn on the defroster. It works like every other car.

The rear window visibility is not the best. I do agree there.

New prime 2024 has no awd.

Ah I guess it’s just the regular prius? Bummer

> Terrible in snow and ice

New Englander here. I've owned two Priuses (2004 and 2010) and both have been surprisingly able to handle winter weather quite well. Not as good as my Outback, but in light to medium conditions and driven by an experienced winter driver they performed admirably.

The older one made it through a major blizzard in rural road and interstate driving across 4 states, albeit at a reduced rate of speed (45 mph, which drove up the MPG to 52, a record for that car).

We still drive the 2010 model. I'm hoping that Subaru will get its act together on hybrid by the time we have to retire the Prius, but I would definitely get another Toyoya hybrid.

Next Forester Hybrid will get hybrid technology from Toyota:

https://www.motor1.com/news/696979/subaru-forester-hybrid-to...

I own a 2024 Toyota Corolla Hybrid (similar drive train to Prius) and it defrost the window way faster than my previous Volkswagen Passat. Ice and snow handling has been pretty similar here in North Europe compared to my previous car, studded winter tires are the key. Visibility is also quite comprareble.

> Terrible in snow and ice

Are they worse than most front-drive cars? (And what about compared with a Trans Am?)

> No way to defrost your windshield, unless you're already driving

I've wondered about that. The Prius still gets its cabin heating from the ICE?

> Poor rear window visibility

Agree completely.

My experience with a prius in the north east was that it wasn't particularly bad in ice and snow and the few times I got caught in snowstorms it handled about as well as any front wheel drive car. I certainly wouldn't go out into a snowstorm with it if I had the choice, but thats true of almost any non-awd drive. The windshield defrosting situation was also a non issue for me.

Man I miss my prius, I sold it when gas was under $2...

Agreed. I still have a 2008, and it has gotten me through a couple nor'easters. Even with the original Goodyear Integrity tires. One of them was on the rolling hills of I-90 and I-84 through western Massachusetts and Connecticut. On every uphill portion I'd pass people who had gotten stuck, until I finally reached a place to stop for the night and wait out the storm. The front wheel drive seems to make it better than a lot of other cars out there. Put some CrossClimate2 tires on it, and it would be even better.

Cabin heating is done by heat pump but the gas engine kicks on for the front defrost. I don't know what parent is referring to wrt not being able to run defroster.

I haven't found any of the Prius I've owned to be terrible in snow and ice. They are front wheel drive and have traction control and it works fine.

> The Prius has all the modern stuff

Hilarious to think this is modern stuff. This stuff is 2-3 decades old.

I included information screen -- just didn't want to type out Apple and Android car software. And backup cameras are more recent than 20 years mostly.

CarPlay isn't exactly amazing either. It's good at some things and sucks at others.

I rode in one when I called an Uber once and was über amazed... it's so spacious too! Pics really don't do it justice

The Trans Am also had simple analogue controls - including for the heat & AC - while the new Prius has evidently succumbed to the overcomplicated "let's take away buttons" phenomenon.

Also, you're not getting a bride to leave her husband at the altar if you pull up alongside in a Prius. Just sayin'.

I'll toast a Coors Banquet to that!

---------

Amen to that though! I agree that the new gen Prius looks really sleek! I tried EVs but the range and lack of after-market parts was really limiting, so I've been fairly happy with the Prius Prime.

But

- Does not look as cool

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