Ok,

So a friendly dealer here in Boston willingly agreeed to borrow me a Prius for 24hrs. They have a rental prius but they won't even charge me to rent it. I consider this very nice. They also seemed to talk MSRP for the car which is what I had come to expect. He did mention a 4-6 months wait (worse then I hoped) and that they can't yet order package #8 but they can get package #7. The difference is leather seats.

note: this is long and rambling. I wanted to capture all my feelings "on paper" to make a more logic decision (and to see what feeling change or solidifies). I was also too lazy to spell check so bare with me!

I've been driving the car for about 1 hour as I write this (I will post follow up comments tonight/tomorrow). The car I've borrowed is a loaded 05 (with smart key, nav system, JBL etc). I'm driving it in Boston which today is a whopping 37F.

First I took it around the neighbourhood streets of the dealership to warm it up and get comfy with all the buttons) and then on the highway (93 south) doing no more then 65mph. During this phase I wasn't so interested in mpg but more about the handling/power/feeling. My initial feeling is that the car is well built and relativley quiet even at highway speeds. Maybe not as quiet as my 98 Maxima but comparable (and the Maxima is a more upscale car).

I must confess that It felt even less powerful then I thought it would but after driving it some more I'm starting to think this is mostly because the ICE doesn't rev the same way a normal car would as well as the lack of gear shift. A rocket it is not but it seem to keep up well in traffic and I might have been accelerating harder then I thought. I need to confirm this with more driving.

Cabin is nicley layed-out and spacious. Not as big or expensive feeling as I had hoped but more then adequate. The funky speedometer placement is functional but I still need to warm up to digital read out (though it might be good for P&G to ensure you keep it under 41). The display is nice and the access to radio, climate control etc logical.
The climate control set to auto seems to do a good job of keeping the cabin warm w.o using the fam much. It also switched between different modes (like pushing heat to the feet etc). I didn't have a problem with fogging but I'm not sure if that was the weather or the climate control. I had it set to Auto all the time. The whole car screams gadetry, not neccesarily a bad thing (I like gadgets) but it could be designed to look better.
Driving position is about as good/bad as I thought it would be. Seat is slightly to short for me (I'm 6'3" and 200lbs with long legs/arm) so it doesn't give as much leg support as I wanted. There is more then enough leg room though as I don't have the chair all the way back (but almost). I wish they would put in a better seat as an option (I winder if there are aftermarket seats that could be used). The seat back is also very "steppy". It's either 90 degrees or it's like 75 degrees. I would like to keep it at 80. Lumbar support is not good. It feel more like a corrolla then a camry but it's adequate for comuting but probably not great for longer trips. I don't think my maxima has good seats but they are still better.
The wheel only tilts slighty up and down and I didn't really feel a big difference. I would like to pull the wheel towards me about 1 inch but it's not a bad position as it is. The wheel has about 5 million buttons on it and they are NOT laid out nicley. That said they seem pretty handy and I think I would get used with them. Still which they had a less tacky look.

The JBL stereo is rather bad, the sound is boxy and bass plentiful but fuzzy, the mid range weak and the tweeter sounds like a tin can. Best sound so far is setting the low and high range flat and bumping the mid range up a couple of steps. For being a premium package it doesn't provide much hifi sound (reminds me of rental car stereos but a little better). I don't even want to think about what the standard sound system must sound like. It's nice to have a 6 CD changer in the dash. That said I'm spoiled with my Maxima's Bose system that is one of the better I've heard.

The rearview mirror takes up half the windshield, I found that I had too look around it during slow speed right turns (this has the autodim feature). Is the standard winshield smaller?

There is a suprising amount of room in the rear. and with the seats down there is room for a lot of luggage but the roof height (with seats down) where lower then I expected. I wonder if my german shepherd will fit in there with the seats down or if he will be confined to the rear seats. The rear seatc give about as much room for him as my maxima does.

The second part of the trip was my comute ride from home to work. This is mostly back roads and no faster then 40mph roads (mostly 35mph). There was a lot more traffic then normal for this ride since it was lunch time. I tried to drive the prius carefully but not overdoing it. For the trip i got 46.4 mpg. This was in 37F weather and while I was hoping at closer to 50 it still was quite good. I was also using the cruise control a bit on certain 35 mph roads but I don't think the cruise control is doing so well as it kept the gas engine running the whole time. Towards the end of the trip I tried to driving carfully myself and I think that works better. I was able to maintain speed with electric only or coasting for quite some stretches. So I think the cruise control is out for my commute. Then again maybe running the ICE is overall more effective? I don't know, it need to be tested.

I did understand the "pulse and glide" part. If you let go of the gas completly the car will imediatley jump into regen mode (as seen on the display). If you then push down the gas pedal ever so slighty it goes from regen (slowing down) to coasting. It coasts well. You can see that you are coasting by no arrows going anywhere on the screen. I did find that it's very easy to push a little to far and use the batteries but if you let go and reaplly it most often work. I think this will be importand for good gas milage and also having happier cars behind you as the regen mode slows the prius down more quickly then other cars that coast.

For people with experience if the prius: How good bad is 46.4 mpg for a 35 minute commute on lightly trafficed 35mph roads in 37F degree weather? I have no idea what the tire pressure is but the car felt very soft.

So in summary: I like many apsects of the car. It's def a good city and comute car. It feel like a upscale corrolla with a more interesting design. For 25-30.000K it wouldn't be too bad a price even without the hybrid technology. It's really nice to stand at red lights and coast in traffic with out using the engine. Makes you feel all good inside. I think this is the car for me as it's "good enough" but I'm not walking away with that must have feeling I was hoping for(though I was looking at more expensive cars). I might wait for the Camry Hybrid to show. I'm not found of driving the Camry as I want something quirker but of the Camry gets 50mpg compared to the Prius 60 then I might trade 10 mpg for a better cabin. Does anyone have more info on the Camry? It should be announced about now right? But I think the highlander and rx400 is out and it's likley that I end up with a prius. Might as well get on that wait list while I make up my mind :-)