Well, I made the mistake of driving a Prius V ("V" is for "versatility"), and immediately liked it. It drives much like a standard Prius, only slightly heavier, if that makes sense. It's six inches longer and four inches taller.
Who knows what the actual price to the dealer is, but I got it for a couple hundred bucks under invoice, after telling the sales manager point blank that I was ready to walk. They caved. They always do. $26,500 with a $28,219 sticker.
While comfortable that I got a pretty good deal, I can't believe that I spent that much on a car. There will be some short-term purchase regret. I'm the guy who spent years buying and driving the shit out of $14k Corollas, and only bought the last Prius because the lease was stupid cheap. Particularly after seeing my last car destroyed, it still doesn't feel like a good thing to spend money on.
That said, I put a lot down and the payments won't be bad. Turns out my credit score was 809, so I got a good rate. This car has to go the distance, at least six years. I justified it by feeling like we needed a good road trip car, and frankly, we deserve it. I wanted enormous amounts of room without having a giant car or crappy fuel economy. Time will tell, but I think I can squeeze out mid-40's.
Purchase regret aside, the more I look at it, the more I feel like there was a lot of value for the money. The amount of technology in the car is astounding. The navigation isn't something I'll widely use, but it's definitely a nice to have. I'm just excited that I can play music from my phone without plugging in. The backup camera, while neat, still seems like one of the most ridiculous things ever invented for a car. Other than seeing a child or object there, it's not really useful.
My understanding is that the dash revisions might make it into the 2013 Prius, and if that's the case, it's a good thing. There are many tweaks to the controls that make a ton of sense. For example, the radio channel up/down buttons are now, in fact, up and down instead of left and right. The center console is no longer a sea of buttons, and all trim levels have a touch screen that mostly address audio functions. Temperature controls are finally usable without looking! There's a dial that "bumps" left or right to switch between mode, temperature and fan speed, and once you're on the one you want, you twist to change it. It's clever. There are dedicated buttons for the defoggers and A/C.
They did away with the big sweeping center "thing" that the third-generation cars had, and the center is now a tall arm rest with the power/EV/eco mode buttons on it, the shifter moved up to the steering wheel. This makes for well-positioned cup holders, a deep well for crap, and a very smart one-inch deep slot for phones and such. They stuck a third cup holder to the right of the glove box for some reason. Oh, and totally random, there's a motorized lumbar support in the driver seat.
The back seats seemed smaller, but only because they now can be moved forward and back. I'm still amazed at how much room there is back there for tall people. They also added a retractable third shoulder seat belt. The cargo area is of course significantly larger and taller, offering more space than a RAV4, or so they tell me. It's supposed to be bigger than 80% of small SUV's, and I believe it. This is the biggest small car I've ever seen.
The exterior isn't that far off from a regular Prius, though the back door is obviously not a typical hatchback. The front looks very similar, save for some slightly different points and curves in the grill style. Eye-balling it, it appears that little has changed under the hood. It just looks like a big Prius.
As for the driving, like I said, it feels a little heavier. It is in fact 250 pounds heavier, and I feel it in the braking. It handles about the same, maybe leaning a little less in turns. The same glorious power mode is great for being aggressive in traffic.
The fuel economy is 44 city, 40 highway, down from the 51/48 of the standard Prius, and this was the biggest drawback for me. After one real drive, it looks like highway on the flatness of my drive is around 43 mpg, so I could probably coax it to 45. If I could do a consistent 45 on the highway, I'd be tickled with that, since the regular car was doing around 47 on my cross-country drive.
Overall I'm really pleased with it, as one should be with a car that expensive. I know, it's not really expensive (one article I read said the national average was $28,400), but spending a lot on something that only declines in value is not entirely rational to me, even if I can afford it. I very much look forward to taking it for a drive soon.
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