Improved Prius packs features, contradictions

Beyond that is the $4,500 Advanced Technology Package which incorporates features that we might expect to see on a prestige brand car, part of Toyota’s bid to reinforce the cache of Prius ownership. This includes dynamic radar cruise control, a pre-collision system that cinches seatbelts and automatically applies the brakes; automatic lane keeping, which automatically steers the car to help keep it in the lane; and intelligent parking assist to help out with parallel parking.

Well-off customers have shown the demand for munificently accoutered $31,000 Priuses, and it makes sense for Toyota to meet that demand, especially if a byproduct is cultivation of an image of technical leadership and not just green responsibility. Most of us will probably take the opportunity to sample these optional widgets while test-driving Priuses at the dealer, but will then settle for a more affordable version of the car when it is time to sign the papers.

But one result of this technological tour de force is a stirring of cognitive dissonance. Toyota touts the ecological awareness that motivated the company to include a solar-powered air vent and LED lighting. This will save a watt or two, here or there but will have zero measurable impact on fuel consumption. It is, in the parlance of politics, red meat for the base. These gadgets will prove to the true believers that the Prius remains the pre-eminent transportation option for the environmentally responsible. Or perhaps, for the more-environmentally-responsible-than-thou.

This has long been my objection to the Prius. I have always enjoyed the second-generation Prius. Prius is my favorite car in Toyota’s lineup, but I can’t escape the feeling that to most people it is a giant political bumper sticker, and I prefer to keep my political opinions quieter than that.

The source of the stirring of dissonance is that while the Prius touts its energy-saving capabilities, this latest edition includes a remote-controlled air conditioner that runs when the driver isn’t even in the car yet, using more electricity in those three minutes than will be saved by the LED taillights in an overnight road trip.

It only gets worse in the winter, because the available leather-wrapped seats now boast electric seat heaters. These devices, among my favorite options in most new cars, are a contradiction in the Prius because the heating coils amount to a near-dead short in the electrical system that heats the wires built into the seat bottoms.

It’s possibly the most profligate possible use of electricity, though one which I regularly enjoy in various test cars. This single feature probably draws more electricity than anything on the car save the electric motor, and it seems completely out of place on a Prius.

And this doesn’t even address the matter having of leather seats in the car voted “Most likely to haunt the parking lots outside vegan markets.”

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