Posted by Kevin Matthews on October 23, 2000 at 14:27:17:In Reply to: Re: Toyota Prius Update posted by Alex Holsinger on October 23, 2000 at 11:19:38:
We were told the GPS add on would be available for addition to the 2001 Prius sold in the US by late summer 2001.
Same for cruise control.
Sounds cool! We'll look forward to it.
Also ... when estimating expected mileage based on a weekend or other test period of only a few days, I think you'll be getting a conservative estimate. Unless you're a super-fast learner, or don't care to learn at all, the car will help you learn how to drive it better and better over a period of a month or more. As a seat of the pants estimate, I think the long term learning curve is worth about 10% more mileage improvement, compared to normally reasonable driving habits.
With our typical driving senario, which requires driving only about 12 mph for the first half mile (too slow for optimum mileage during the engine warm-up period - 25 to 30 mph gives a much better economy during warm-up) and which begins by going down 700' of elevation (good for regenerating) and ends every time with a 700' hill climb (not much hybrid benefit for that!), with 90% in-town driving plus occassional long highway trips, we continue to see 45 mpg average.
Zero problems so far.
Cheers,
K