While house hunting recently, I met a realtor who gave me a disapproving look when I inquired whether the garage was wired for 220 in case I wanted to install a charging station for a Tesla I might buy. He informed me that his wife drove a Tesla and loved it. “The problem is that with the price of electricity through the roof, the savings in fuel cost is no longer significant,” he said. “I only pay a couple bucks more each day to drive my Jeep.”
A couple of friends who are environmentalists also pointed out to me recently that buying an EV isn’t automatically a slum-dunk environmental choice. Perhaps, the wiser choice is to forget the high-priced EVs, the luxury cars, the behemoth SUVs, and instead opt for a gas-powered vehicle with the best mileage and an emphasis on simplicity and reliability.
That brings us to the Toyota Prius. Now in its fifth-generation iteration, the Prius was the original vehicular environmental badge of honor. The advent of EVs eclipsed Prius’ prowess, but they never went away. Now, they’re getting a second look by everyone from disenchanted EV owners to dinosaurs driving Escalades who finally buckled under gas prices of over $5 per gallon. And that is definitely the good news about the 2024 Prius. The standard front-wheel-drive model comes with a 194-hp hybrid set-up that utilizes a 2.0 hybrid inline-four gas engine. It’s no slouch off the line, going zero to 60 in 7.1 seconds. But, the best news? The Prius gets 57 miles per gallon around town and 56 on the highway, according to the EPA. That translates to driving from downtown Palm Springs to Mendocino on a single tank of gas. The latest design of the Prius is sleeker and more aerodynamic, with a roofline that’s two inches lower than its more bulbous predecessors. The cockpit is more snug – not race car snug, but definitely more form-fitting. It features an eight-inch infotainment screen and a cluster of instruments behind the steering wheel. In short, Toyota engineers put considerable thought into making the driver experience more comfortable … not just more virtuous.
