Pat Sparks drives the Gen III at the Australian Media Launch, Sydney.

The time has come for us to take the Generation III Prius for a road test. After a quick orientation of the vehicle in the hybrid hub we were paired up with members of the Prius Sales team and hit the road. My car was a red I-Tech. I would have preferred to drive an entry level car but this was how the chips fell so I wasn’t going to argue. My observer was Patrick. Yep, 2 Pats in a Prius, it can be done!

We departed Toyota and hit the road. First thing I noticed was the seats in this car were far superior to the seats in my GII Prius. Unlike the GII in the GIII you sit in, not on the seats. I don’t have the longest legs but even I find the GII seat squab too short and my ample bum feels perched on the seat rather than being cradled by it. Anyway back to the GIII. As everyone is aware the seat has additional adjustment to the previous model and almost everyone will be able to find a comfortable position in this seat. I didn’t explore the tilt and telescope steering wheel, the wheel was in the ideal location for me on entering the car. I got the impression the back window was even more narrow than the previous model but this may have been caused by the wider mirror. I’ll try to measure the back window with a tape measure at some point unless another member posts measurements first. This impression may also be caused by the thinner spoiler and deeper lower window in the hatch. Driving out the gate I noticed the suspension was smooth and there was less thumping when driving over speed bumps and spoon drains.

Out on the road I was rightly distracted from mentally recording my driving impressions by unfamiliar roads and traffic behaviour. Sydney drivers are so much more courteous than Adelaide drivers, Adelaide drivers are road hogs and pigs! I started out driving normally, a person who currently drives a Prius will feel immediately comfortable driving this car. The controls are all where they should be and except the new “gear selector†and mirror controls location everything falls automatically to hand. Most driving was on 4 lane main roads with speed limits of 60 or 70km/h in medium to heavy traffic, surfaces of bitumen and concrete. There is only 1 concrete road in Adelaide so concrete roads are not familiar to me but I do recall on a previous visit to Sydney the thumping of the expansion joints in concrete roads, well it’s lucky I know about that because it wasn’t evident on this drive. The ride of this new vehicle is superior to my 04 model. At this point it should be noted my own car has tyre pressures set to about 50 psi, I didn’t check but I suspect this car had the tyres at manufactures specs. Driving through roundabouts I notice the car corners flat and without fuss at quick but sane speeds, power in normal Prius style comes in a smooth, stepless supply. At no time on this drive did I find my foot pressing the pedal into the grey carpet, there was always more power than I needed to drive this route. Even entering a short section of freeway I could easily accelerate to speed at about ½ to ¾ throttle.

One thing I did notice was the left foot rest was not as high as in the GII, I found I was sliding down the seat a little. This allowed me to find a forgotten feature on the GIII Prius. In pushing my ample rear back into the seat I pressed hard on the brake pedal, there was a beep and the ABS light came on, flashing on the dash. I worked out this was the hill hold feature! Pretty clever this, a firm press on the pedal while stationary and the brakes will stay on for a short time after you lift off the brake to allow you to apply throttle and move off without rolling back and without using the park brake or left foot braking. Clever!

All too soon we found ourselves at our destination, a closed carpark of the Cronulla Sharks or Toyota Shark Park. Here we would participate in a CO2 challenge.

In summary, this new Prius is everything it is touted as. It is smoother, more powerful, quieter and with more features than the previous model. It looks more like a conventional car but is still obviously a Prius. The space in the back seat of this car is outstanding and it would be a great car to take on holiday. There is no reason 4 people wouldn’t be comfortable in this cabin on a long journey. The seats are firm and supportive but might not be bolstered enough still for truly spirited driving but I doubt the buyers of Prius drive in a spirited manner all that often. I lament the demise of the spare tyre in the I-Tech, I’m not sure that is a good move in a country with as much isolation as Australia especially when this car is more suited to highway cruising than the previous Prius. This would be a fantastic interstate vehicle! I really believe Toyota has raised the bar, and the diesel boys have some work to do to match the consumption performance and comfort of the Prius on the open road.

CO2 Challenge
Rules.
A time and CO2 emission level has been set by Neal Bates,

neil bates | The Motor Report: Auto News And Reviews around a figure 8 track set out in the car park. The time is for 2 laps of the figure 8 circuit a distance of about 700 metres.
Each participant will be taken around the course by Graeme Gambold a top suspension engineer and vehicle tester, to be shown the course and will be given tips on how to get the best results.
Each person will have 2 runs, a computer and remote telemetry will keep track of CO2 emissions and will also time each run
Anyone who is more than 10% outside (+ or -) the time set by Neil Bates on their run will not have than run counted.
The time in seconds, measured to 1/10th of a second will be multiplied by the average grams per kilometre CO2 emissions for the run to give a score. This score will be used to determine the winner with the lowest score being the winner.

The run.
Each run is a rolling start. The best way to meet the time is to accelerate before passing through the timing gate to about 50km/h then allow the speed to fall to about 45km/h before entering the first right turn and maintain that speed through the course maintaining a smooth line. After the last corner lift off and coast to the finish.

During this off road sector I found the handling of this car to be pretty good under pressure, there was moderate understeer under the CO2 challenge conditions where accelerator and brake pedals were almost ignored. You can see in the photo how the tyres are rolling under cornering load. On the road, while not under pressure to achieve low fuel consumption I didn't notice this because the car can be ballanced with throttle inputs.

7 people took part in the challenge, and I won!
I even bettered Neal Bates' time and emissions level.

 

Thanks mate.
oops, Sorry Neal!!

Hey, I'll add here I have Neal Bates' autograph on my Toyota jacket!!

I'll do another post soon about the trip and Prius presentation. That was what I have been writing up when I had time.

 

Oh pooh, thanks Dave, I forgot about that. I'll add more about that this afternoon. I'm at work so shouldn't even be on PriusChat right now. In brief it's a good feature but needs some getting used to. I'll answer more questions then too.

Thanks guys, I have written most of a report on the rest of the event to come. I separated the 2 because this is a car thread not an event thread.

 

Head Up Display.
The head up display was something I think would be really useful. I should have taken some time to play with the settings but with limited time I just didn't do half the stuff I wanted to. I did have a quick play with the height adjustment.

Head up displays are meant to be an unobtrusive display which is close to the drivers line of sight, in this respect the HUD in the Prius works really well. This like the new energy monitor screens is something that I think will take a little time to get used to. I found myself looking down at the main speed display rather than at the HUD but when I made the effort to remember the HUD was there I started using it. It just seems a little unnatural to look at the speed reading on the windscreen, especially in an unfamiliar city. I feel sure if I was in my home town on my usual commute I'd get used to the HUD and hardly ever look at the main speedo display again. The Eco monitor was not switched on on the HUD, and again I didn't really feel I had time to play with this stuff.

Next to the electric mirror controls is the height adjustment switch for the HUD, a simple rocker switch, push up to move the gree numbers up the screen and down to move them down.

Another thing, I feel a bit stupid!
Why didn't I think to put the Prius into EV mode when I was doing the CO2 challenge? Once up to speed I suspect the electric motor would have had enough power to keep the Prius rolling around the track at a constant 45km/h, Australian Prius has maximum EV speed of 50km/h. As the start was a rolling start I could have hit the EV button on the start line and made it around on 0 grams of CO2!! What was I thinking? As I said, no time to think about this stuff.