2018 Prius Prime

I'm pretty sure Germany has the rule that a vehicle year designation has to be the year of manufacture. In the USA a vehicle made in January of 2017 could be labeled a 2018 year model.

 

My car was made in September 2016 and is an early 2017 model. They US generally changes to new models in late summer or early autumn. Of course, manufacturing needs to change over earlier.

 

Man oh man, the insurance company is going to love raising the premium on that car to cover repairs to all those extra LED lights- I see $3000 worth of LED lights to fix a rear-ender. The front is probably just as bad.

 

My insurance company raised my insurance $7 for the year taking the PiP off and putting the Prime on. Of bigger impact will be when the insurance companies finally recognize the all the anti collision technologies built into the car. They are a little behind on that from speaking with them.


Unsupervised!

 

My agent asked if our new Camry had them.
While they collision avoidance systems can reduce crashes, the sensors can increase the repair bills when they do happen. So it is up in the air as to whether they'll reduce insurance rates.

 

Lists for $1636.21, but selling for a mere $1072.21 here:

Toyota Online Parts | Genuine Toyota parts | Toyota Parts Online product search | Toyota Parts

 

There is a company I know of that specializes in repairing auction purchases of wrecked Prii from Insurance companies- and resells them with rebuilt titles. The owner told me the repair costs of a Prius with the ATP could be too much for him to make a profit on in the resale, so he avoids bidding on those cars. I don't know how this bodes for future insurance premiums on the new Prii with the full enchilada of Safety Sense and maybe the insurance companies don't know either, until they have some accident loss history .
These expensive LED front and rear light assembies have gotten out of control! I don't want that kind of repair bills on a car.
added:
after some thought, it occurred to me that a wrecked 2017 Prius that had repairs done to the Safety Sense systems, would become a liability for the Insurance company in a future wreck, if the S-Sense system was deemed to have not worked correctly. This would be a can of worms they won't want opened- I see a lot of those cars sold as total losses, when they would have been repaired in the past.

 

My friend, besides all the various sensors in front with the LED's front and rear, you haven't mentioned the ridiculous quantity of airbags in the car, which in my Honda Civic were each $2500!! Do the math and you'll never buy another "modern" car! I think safety technology has been taken to an absurdly outrageous level.
If you truly want to be safe, don't drive!!

I think wistfully about my little 1969 Alfa Romeos, and that FUN era; and yes they were simple and extremely reliable!!
AND when I finally sold all 3 at the divorce, it was for three times what I had paid for them used!! They each had over 260,000 miles!! Irreplaceable gems!!


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Amen to that! If not rusted out, many cars from the 60's are great investments now. I had high hopes that Fiat would start making an Alfa MiTo variant at the Chrysler Belvidere assembly plant-, but it was not to be- Fiat just teased me. We are still driving our 5 year old Fiat 500- great fun to drive!

 

Yep, sometimes I really miss my '63 Daimler SP-250 Dart. Looked like a fish, drove like a rocket.

 

To paraphrase, sporty is as sporty does. 0-60? Increased damping and springs? Looks is just eye candy, and I wouldn't count that as sporty. If it works like my Prime advanced (which I like a lot... as I bought it for the mileage NOT the sportiness or lack thereof), it is writing a check it can't cash. If I wanted speedy acceleration I would have bought a Ford Energi (which initially wrote an MPG check it could NOT cash, at least they quit lying about it! (They had initially claimed 48 MPG while in real life getting 39!!! Consumer Reports said that was the greatest difference between claimed MPG and real life results. I test drove a C-Max the 1st year, and was thinking that was pretty terrific acceleration for a car that got 48MPG! Hah! ).

 

As for the Hyundai warranty, apparently it is needed! My daughter was without her 2016 Sonata Plug in Hybrid for almost 1 month* while they waited for a replacement traction battery... from Korea! I personally prefer to have an actual reliable car than a super duper warranty. Both would be even better though!

*From what I have read, lengthy "out of service" times are not that unusual at Hyundai. Also, they loaned my daughter a Fiat compact SUV for the duration of her outage.

 

No change over for the 2018.

2018 Toyota Prius Prime | In-Depth Model Review | Car and Driver

 

The I3 looks to me like it was designed by a committee... all in different rooms and unaware of the work of the others! Is that a brontosaurus nose on the front? LoL

 

Regardless, it works like an electric micro-van:

• short wheel base - gives excellent turn radius that I used to pull a U-turn on wrong a street
• tall seat - often see over many cars including Prius to handle traffic
• rear engine/motor compartment - reminds me of the engine compartment in our VW MicroBus
• low center of gravity - high-speed turns and handling
• ready access to front hardware - thin, velcro held, mesh covers

The parts that matter are inside the car and laid out well. But I'm an engineer, not a sheet metal artist. When form follows function, there is a beauty of another type.

Bob Wilson

 

"Form ever follows function" - Louis Sullivan, father of the skyscraper, the building born in Chicago

 

Car And Driver rates the highway EV range at 75mph, and notes that it does not meet the EPA rated 25 miles.

 

Funny...no changes for 2018...so must be they overlooked the 12V outlet on the back of the console when they showed only one outlet. Wonder what else they missed.

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