Five Prius sightings today – of the more recent models, one was silver, one blue, one black. I also managed to spy a blue 1st generation Prius, which I’ve never seen. The last one was a white 1st generation. Cool.

Oh, and farmer’s markets are fun.

Word.

Useless information of the day: I try to count the number of Toyota Priuses I see when I’m out and about. So far, the maximum number of Priuses I’ve seen in any one day is 12, and that was while in the Seattle/Eastside region several weeks ago. I didn’t blog it, though — whoops.

I went back home on Friday and saw 11 while in Seattle and on the Eastside. On Saturday, I saw another 8 while in the Lynwood/Alderwood Mall area (between there and home, of course), and on Sunday, I saw another 8 in the Olympia area. Yesterday, I saw 5.

It’s really quite heartening to me to see the number of Prius owners going up. I have to admit, though, that I have no idea how many of these sightings may have been repeat sightings of the same vehicle — that’s more likely in Olympia than anywhere else, since this is a smaller community.

Tidbit of the day. Enjoy.

My mom has her name in for a package 4 or 5 2005 Toyota Prius, with salsa red, driftwood, or seaside pearl as color options. Driftwood seems to be preferred.

If I were choosing driftwood, Amanda would surely joke (once again) about driving a car the same color as my pants.

I picked up an interesting tidbit while inquiring into Toyota of Olympia’s waitlist times — only 5 percent of the total Prius builds are actually package 5. Package 4 is far more popular. This is interesting, and definitely sways my package choice towards package 4, should I ever be in the market for a 2005 Toyota Prius (or later year, of course).

I’ve talked a lot about the Toyota Prius, but since many other people (most notably John Fagnant over at john1701a.com) have already made a very strong case for the Prius, I haven’t dived into this realm of writing about the car. Indeed, most of what I’m about to say here is repeated copiously elsewhere on the web. I put it here both for my own reference and for enlightenment.

As most know, there are several hybrid cars available today: the Honda Civic, Accord, and Insight, the Ford Escape, and, of course, the Toyota Prius. Also joining the line this year through Lexus (Toyota’s luxury division) is the RX400H SUV and Toyota’s new Highlander hybrid SUV, due out in June of this year. Of these, the Toyota Prius is the most well-known, due to extensive marketing by Toyota and a fiercely loyal supporter base that has kept a number of Internet sites going (like John’s and priusonline.com, a massive forum for Prius owners and interested parties).

There have been a number of people who have observed that the EPA rating for the Toyota Prius at 60 miles/gallon (in city; 51MPG highway) is wildly inaccurate, but according to the EPA itself, this is an average number. The Prius’ rating is uses a ratio of “45% highway driving, 55% city driving, 15000 annual miles and a fuel cost of $ 1.91 per gallon” in EPA tests according to fueleconomy.gov. Since this is an average (and not a median) value, we can’t say anything about whether people will definitely get a higher or lower value. Average values can be incredibly misleading — for example, the average of {1, 1, 1, 1, 9} is 13/5 = 2.6, whereas the median is actually 1. The real-world experience of drivers of the Prius seems to be between 35 and 50MPG (lifetime value). It all depends on how you drive the car; either way, this is far more fuel efficient than any other unleaded model out there, most of which are lucky to make between 20 and 25MPG.

A very closely related argument to the higher fuel efficiency is the lower overall cost of ownership incurred by less frequent trips to the gas tank. The fuel tank of a Prius holds 11.9 gallons — fairly comparable to a standard car — but uses that amount of gas up much slower than other cars because of smart utilization of the electric and gas engines. Again, the rate at which drivers must fill up the car depends on how they drive it, but for the most part, driving the car does result in fewer trips to the gas station and higher return on ownership.

In addition, through 2006, there are various tax incentives for buying a hybrid. The government’s Fuel Economy web site shows the details for these. [Edit, April 3, 12:10AM: The IRS web site also has a brief notice on how to correctly file this deduction on Form 1040.]

The final reason — for many eco-conscious consumers, this car is a perfect fit with their values. My first year at Evergreen, I took a course entitled Trash, during which I became fascinated with the ideas of sustainable economics and sustainability in general. That has become a part of my own studies and interests, but has yet to have any real substantial expression in my own life. In addition, it’s a great way to help with the raging debate on climate change, and it’s a nod towards the sustainable future we seem to be headed for. That’s why I’m looking at the Prius seriously; I have always been taught to stick to my own values even when those values are questioned, and the idea of sustainability has become a value of my own.

Toyota has announced new prices on the Toyota Highlander hybrid and the 2005 Prius:

The base MSRP for the 4×2 Highlander Hybrid Limited will be $37,890. The Highlander Hybrid Limited with 4WD-i will carry an MSRP of $39,290.

The Highlander Hybrid will begin arriving in Toyota dealerships in June 2005.

The groundbreaking Toyota Prius midsize sedan remains the best-selling gas-electric hybrid vehicle in the United States and the world. The most fuel-efficient midsize car in America, the Hybrid Synergy Drive powered Prius delivers exceptional fuel efficiency without compromising performance, comfort and safety.

Beginning April 4, the 2005 Prius will receive an adjusted MSRP of $20,975, a slight increase of $100, or 0.5 percent.

The $100 increase in 2005 Prius models is presumably to offset the increase in production allocations for U.S. models. Seems fair to me.

Finally, after about a year of lusting after the Prius, I got to go down to Toyota of Kirkland and take a rather long test drive (about an hour). The car was a black 2005 with package 6 (every option known to man), which includes driver/front passenger seat-mounted side and front/rear curtain airbags, smart key system, security alarm, HomeLink garage door opener, GPS navigation, JBL premium AM/FM cassette/6-disc in-dash CD changer w/(9) speakers, vehicle skid control, fog lamps, and HID headlamps. This particular car also had a 5-piece carpet floor/trunk mat set, cargo net, and first aid kit.

If I only liked the car before, I really, really like it now. It drove flawlessly — no losses in power, very responsive to the pedal, and the control placement is ideal to ensure that eyes are kept on the road. It’s a very comfortable car, though there are some odd points, mostly in the way of visibility. Looking out the back of the car from the driver’s side seat, there’s a crossbar that divides the rear window into two window components — the angle of the rearview mirror or the angle of the window made the lower half appear tinted, which was a little disorienting, since the window itself isn’t tempted. There are also two very strange blind spots on either side of the rear window, which means that it’s not all that easy to see when backing up. This can be compensated for by being extra aware when backing. The car also has this cool little beep that goes off when you’re in reverse so that you know you’re in reverse. Now if only they would make an audio signal by default when your turn signal’s been on too long.

Admittedly, you don’t need GPS navigation in a car unless you have an annoying habit of getting lost, but it’s still a cool little feature. I glanced at it a couple of times when I was driving and it was fairly accurate — not perfect, necessarily, based on my knowledge of the area, but pretty good. Buttons on the steering wheel allows for control of interior temperature, the Bluetooth hook-in to the cell phone, and the audio system. It even has a trigger for voice activation, which is apparently wired into the navigation system in addition to the phone system. Thus, you can activate the voice feature, then say something like “Show me Chinese places” and it should, theoretically, show the nearest Chinese eatery. We didn’t test this, though.

It’s very, very hard to tell that the car’s on if it’s sitting still with the air conditioning and everything else off. This is probably the most impressive thing about it — I can actually hear conversations on the highway. In normal cars, this isn’t possible at all, and is quite nice for me. Cabin noise is minimal for the most part when the car is actually running. I didn’t have a single problem hearing both Amanda and my mother in the back seat when they were talking. I could probably rattle on all day about the drive, but it took us all over the place and (obviously, by requirement) showed off the major features.

The sales consultant also walked us through the package lists — I’m either looking at package 4 or package 6, with additional accessories (probably the exact accessories list that was on the car I drove today).

If you ever get a chance to drive a 2004 or 2005 Prius, do it — it’s a great experience, even if you don’t end up liking the car in the end. It’s surprisingly luxurious for a car of its size, and I quite enjoyed the experience.

I did it again, darn it — I customized a 2005 Prius.

<exasperated sigh>

I heard from Sean the other day that his girlfriend, Sarah, took some photos of the Salsa Red Pearl Prius that her parents recently bought. The album is pretty much just like any other car photo series I’ve ever seen, but I drooled over it anyway.

No offense to Sarah, of course.

EV World reports that the mayor of Oxford, England has taken delivery of a Toyota Prius, a choice made by the city council over BMW vehicles. BMW is one of the major manufacturers in that city.

Bravo to the city council. Pip, pip, and all that.