I just purchased my 4th Prius in April, a beautiful black Persona. I replaced a 2011 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid with the Persona and, while I went through 1/2 day of buyer's remorse (the Sonata only had 38,ooo miles on it and the Prius is costing me about $50 per month more payment wise ) I had never really grown to like the Sonata and it kept having all of these recalls on it that had to constantly be taken care of. I am sooo glad that I came back to Prius! I love this car! My kids even think that the back seat has slightly more room than the Sonata Hybrid had. I'm average about 14 miles more per gallon on the Prius too. I also prefer the hatchback to the Sonata trunk, which was small due to housing the hybrid battery. I will never not buy a Prius again(unless Toyota comes out with an all electric...or something even better than Prius). My daughter s trying to decide between a Prius C and a Hyundai Veloster and I'm steering her towards "baby Prius" as we call the C in my house.
Welcome back! but i would do more research on the baby "c" for your daughter. I test drove one before I bought my certified '10 and my impression was not positive. I think the lift back is cheap inside, but the C really takes the cake and the ride is rough and it's very loud, not so much the ICE but the lack of sound deadening materials. Cheap car. Don't know anything about the Veloster, though I've seen quite a few on the road lately. Keep us posted!
There is the Tesla-powered Rav4 EV, but it's a CA compliance car. You'll pretty much need to buy it from a CA dealer and have it shipped. Getting service/warranty work on it might be interesting...
Definatly a good move. As I'm now approaching 1200 miles in my new Prius, and after putting 3200 miles on a rental Prius, I feel the car is a technological masterpiece. I'm averaging 52 miles per gallon so far in a huge mix of driving and traffic. While the sonata looks beautiful, I feel that the hatchback Prius has a bit more ulitilty and cargo carrying capability, especially for my larger RC airplanes that don't disassemble for transport, yet they fit in the Prius comfortably. Another thing that I like about Toyota's hybrid system is that they have 16+ years of R&D into it, so for Toyota, this complex technology is not too foreigh for them, thus another boost in reliability.
