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Comment by _yb2s | Hacker News Reader

The Prius system is an excellent design, but as someone that loves driving, it just feels and drives awful- little tactile or audible feedback on any of the controls, and really unresponsive to inputs- arguably dangerously so. My regular daily driver is an old Porsche Boxster, and by comparison the Prius feels like I’m driving a dishwasher or playing a cheap arcade game- it will get you there reliably but it’s just not any fun. Life is too short for me not to enjoy the time I have to spend driving. My sister has an Audi A3 e-tron hybrid (basically an upscale VW Golf) that is extremely fun to drive, but also a very complex drivetrain and engine.

I think a pure EV with a small range extender not connected to the drivetrain mechanically- like the BMW i3 REX is the way to go. It’s even simpler and lighter than the Prius system, allowing for a much larger battery and more powerful electric motor.

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> Life is too short for me not to enjoy the time I have to spend driving.

Or, you could reengineer your too-short life so you waste less time driving.

It’s fine if you like driving and want to have a nice car - connoisseurs abound in all fields. But for 99% of people it’s not an issue worth optimizing for.

That’s actually part of it for me- I often work from home and have very little required driving- so I do mostly see driving as a recreational activity. If I’m going to visit a remote beach or mountain lake for fun on the weekend, I want the drive down a long winding road to be fun also.

> But for 99% of people it’s not an issue worth optimizing for.

Bold claim. Sitting in traffic in manual or auto ICE is a nightmare compared to a Tesla.

It's fine to demand more from a car, but to most of us it has to move us from point a to b.

I honestly never quite understood this perspective or why it's so popular... in general I try to always find ways to do normal life things a little weird, or make it a little more challenging, fun, and memorable- and try to break up the routine drudgery. Even just getting groceries can be a fun adventure with my kid if we put the top down on the Porsche, play some music we love, and maybe go to a weird store that targets a different culture, or has weird surplus/unsold items.

Doing things 'weird' usually makes them cheaper and less crowded/faster as well- as a result of less demand.

Where do you put the groceries in a Porsche?

The Boxster is mid-engined so there is no back seat, but a usable trunk at each end. The front trunk is takes up the entire space of a normal engine bay, and is surprisingly massive for how small the car is, because it is very deep.

Overall the Boxster is a surprisingly practical car- it was very cheap (cheaper than an old Prius of the same age) but now appreciating in value with age, can use a 3+ carpool lane with 2 people, is tiny so easy to park anywhere, and it is actually very reliable and low maintenance.

What if you have another kid and a wife?

At a certain level of utility/space, cars just stop being that fun. Well, until you get to the vans, those are fun in their own weird way.

I do have a wife, not planning on more kids. I'm a bit of a car nerd and have a bunch of older cars I maintain myself- including several that fit the whole family- all of them together costing less than a newer economy car. There are plenty of large cars that are still fun to drive. A Porsche Cayenne/VW Touareg/Audi Q7 can tow as much as a full sized truck, seat 5 in comfort, offroad as well as almost anything, and post sports car worthy track lap times- and you can get a nice one for 5-10 grand on Craigslist nowadays.

There are some fun weird vans. I've always loved the Toyota HiAce, Mitsubishi Delica, and other strange Japanese minvans with weird features like built in karaoke machines, beverage coolers, tiny diesel engines, and real truck 4x4 systems. Also love the old VW vanagons.

They used to run (tongue in cheek) ads for the Boxster with the slogan "The more kids you have, the more practical it becomes" and that it fits "Two child seats. Up front." There's some truth to that- if you have a large family you will likely have multiple cars, it can still make sense for one of them to just take two people for 1 on 1 activities.

I tow with my mk4 tdi all the time, it’s incredibly handy. A lot of towing is bulky stuff that’s not necessarily heavy. There’s still a time and place for a truck, or a full-size truck, but not for everyone.

Haha... weirdly, I've also done a ton of towing with MKIV ALH TDIs. They're absolutely excellent vehicles for towing, and hardly use any fuel while doing so. Sometimes it gets a lot of unwanted attention - especially at a boat ramp, because Americans don't expect cars to be able to tow like that.

When I was in Ireland for work, I saw that a huge fraction of the farmers use MKIV TDIs for their farm work vehicles- they're all over the place pulling huge trailers full of livestock and hay, and still using half the fuel of most cars that are unloaded.

A significant chunk of the crowd here is very anti-car (to varying degrees), so I wouldn’t expect much sympathy if you’re the type of person that enjoys driving. I’d cut your losses in trying to argue your point…and go enjoy driving your car!

As somewhat of an old timer (turning 43), I remember the techie population seemed to overlap a lot with the car enthusiast population a long time ago. Nearly everyone at my first job (small startup) was a car nerd. A lot of engineering and tech goes into cars after all.

Somewhere along the way a lot of techies became very anti-car.

Cars have a lot of unpriced externalities. I see them as a necessary evil. I'd rather future generations had less pollution and more natural resources to enjoy.

There are plenty of other things to tinker with.

I feel the same as you about the awful externalities, but doing it anyway and refusing to enjoy it as 'penance' just isn't how I would want to deal with that. I really love driving, love the freedom of exploring things in cars, and love working on and fixing them. Instead, I work on sustainable biofuel tech- and even as a hobby use and test it out in my own vehicles.

Props to you for exploring some ways of mitigating the damage of your hobbies. I prefer EVs despite their increased road wear (at least compared to vehicles that haven't been super sized).

Having driven a lot in my youth, it's just not something I enjoy regardless. I'd rather spend the time and resources on other things. Even taking a longer bike ride to the store is preferred because it's exercise, almost everyone on the trail nods or waves back, and I know my choice is better for everyone in the community.

I also love cycling and engineless sailing- and see cycling as more practical transport around town, and cars for long distance recreational trips. In my lifetime I have put far more miles on bicycles than cars, as I’ve almost always had a daily bicycle commute to work. Sadly I no longer have a situation where bicycle commuting is possible, and miss it.

Yeah, I am about your age, and it is taboo in my work and social circle to even drive a sports car- I can tell most people I know see it as ostentatious, which I am annoyed by since I bought it for less than 1/10th the price of what most of them drive, and I find it fun, I don't care to impress anyone.

I'll take the bait, what part of what you wrote makes it funnier in a Boxster than a Prius?

Funnier? I assume you mean fun?

I assure you there is no bait- it’s an example of things that would make an everyday chore fun to me, and needs no justification. I would suggest you do what would make it fun to you.

Yeah, as I'm boggled down in traffic on 30/50 kmh roads and sitting idle every two meters in Italy I would see no difference.

So I'd rather get the prius-like ergonomics and comfort.

Not the OP. At the end of the day it’s just taste, right?

I use Linux, EMacs with vim keybindings and a dark color palette. Coding this way makes me feel good, I like the aesthetics. If they tried to force me to use Windows, and an IDE with a light color palette, I’d seriously consider quitting. It’s totally irrational, but it is what it is :D

Definitely a matter of taste- your dev environment sounds downright VILE to me ;-)

Haha!! Fair enough :D

I’m an outlier here but I especially prefer to drive a manual transmission sports car with good handling and lots of driver/road feedback in heavy traffic- as it’s a lot more engaging and easier to stay focused and not bored. I’ve heard the same from others with ADHD. The visibility and maneuverability is also helpful for avoiding potholes and other drivers mistakes. I’d still have a ton of fun driving even a Prius on a real track- but if driving through a crowded city I especially want a convertible sports car.

You assume entire planet lives in Italy?

Of course cars suck in cities, but they are great in rural areas.

After 15 years of owning a Prius, I recently traded it in for a hybrid Toyota RAV4. I love the hybrid technology.

For me, the hybrid is fun to drive. I've never experienced any unresponsive inputs or lack of feedback in performance. The fun comes in at trying to keep the gas engine off as much as possible -- without going becoming a hypermiler and irritating other drivers -- both in city and long distance driving.

Hypermiling can be fun. I’ve also enjoyed a sort of anti-hypermiling: basically configuring and tuning a car such that it can be driven hard and still return amazing fuel economy. I’ve managed to configure a few small diesel vehicles like the VW TDIs such that they still get Prius level 50+ mpg when driven nearly flat out.

To be fair, you are contrasting an econobox with one of the all-time great driver’s cars :) I bet I have enough fingers to count cars more fun to drive than a Boxster.

I do agree about the Prius, though. It feels like driving a dishwasher.

I know it's weird to compare/contrast such different cars, but they're both in the same group to me: old cars I can buy cheap on Craigslist.

I don’t the comparison with a sports car is particular fair.

I regularly drive both a 2011 Prius and a 2023 BMW X1 “mild hybrid”, I’ve also test driven an iX1 electric and X3 “real” hybrid recently (all practical family cars).

In order of increasing accelerator-input-to-actually-moving (at low speed) delay:

iX1 electric (best) Prius X3 hybrid X1 mild hybrid (worst, dangerously bad)

That is to say, every time I get into the 14 year old Prius I think “wow this is nippy” after having driven the 2 year old X1, which we’ve nicknamed “the lag wagon”.

Toyota really nailed the driving ergonomics of the gen2 Prius, given the constraints. Yes, it’s a slow to accelerate at high speeds, but it’s still really nice drive around town.

> a pure EV with a small range extender not connected to the drivetrain mechanically

That is, a series hybrid, like a diesel locomotive?

Yes, a range extender EV like the BMW i3 REx is technically a series hybrid, but it is designed to operate most of the time on electricity only and be plugged in to charge- with a large EV size battery and a very small lightweight moped engine in the extender.

The range extender basically gives you protection from range anxiety, but isn't used at all in normal use of the vehicle. On the i3, it only starts the engine when the battery is nearly empty, but some people do software mods to be able to use the vehicle as a true series hybrid, and run the engine continuously for doing long distance freeway driving without stopping to charge.

> gives you protection from range anxiety

And grants you maintenance anxiety.

Where I live charging infrastructure is good enough that a 300-400km range EV is completely sufficient. Range extenders is a niche solution.

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