PriusChat Presents Prius Drive Thru

[Danny]

A new story entry has been added:

PriusChat Presents Prius Drive Thru

PriusChat is proud to present Prius Drive Thru, a month-long road trip across America sponsored by Toyota. Russell Frost from priusownersgroup.com will be embarking next week on the 8,000 mile trip, stopping in 22 cities and going through 21 states. PriusChat is very excited to be a part of Russell's journey, and you'll be able to keep tabs on his entire trip right here on the PC. We'll be aggregating the Twitter, podcast, and video feeds as well as hosting some unique content from the Prius Drive Thru trip. Y

[Manksgloob]

Wow, pretty neat.

Lots of stops in California.

[usbseawolf2000]

He is not coming to New York. I hope he reports on the MPG.

[TonyPSchaefer]

According to the schedule listed, his path looks like the attached image. Of course, the details of his actual route may vary.

[Rae Vynn]

He's missing Washington state entirely!

Oh well... looks like a fun time, anyway! (and a trip that DH and I would love to make, sometime, too!)

[eak354]

awww.... he's also skipping hawaii!

[FireEngineer]

Glad to see they'll be stopping at Hybridfest.

Wayne

[The Electric Me]

Since I've complained plenty about Toyotas main advertising campaign, and begged for something that didn't include artificial giant daisies, Prius Drive Thru sounds like at least an alternative direction. I will watch with hopeful interest.

[bwilson4web]

OWCH!

Nashville is just a bit north of Huntsville and the direct route to Ashville would be via Knoxville ... too far north. But August 9th is a Sunday so I might 'take the dog for a walk' see a friendly face again.

I'll send him a note and ask if he can perhaps record legs with start/stop times, distance and MPG plus any other notes. He'll have a lot of opportunity to map out highway Prius performance and nothing is nicer than to have independent confirmation of one's data.

I kinda wished he'd taken a more Southern route and included Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and then headed back North. Still, that is an awesome trip through some spectacular country.

Bob Wilson

[Prius Drive Thru]

Hey there!

First and foremost, thanks to Danny and priuschat.com for their invaluable support.

I'll try to address all the questions/comments here as part of this trip is exchanging as much information as possible, so if there's something you want to know, ask! Follow us on Twitter, post on the Facebook page and drop me a line:

drivethru@priusownersgroup.com

I am more than happy to share as much information as I possibly can.

So, to the comments posted here thus far.

Bob, I would absolutely love to hookup with you if we can. Our schedule is tight. While it seems like a month is a long time we've got a lot of traveling to do but I'll do my best.

Also Bob, I would really love it if someone who was math literate (which I am not) would create some kind of MPG matrix so I could track MPG over various conditions and then get some good average numbers as well. I'm willing to provide with any information you need if you can help organize it in some rational fashion. My thought was to break down each day into segments by general road conditions or type of driving (urban versus freeway versus state road for instance). Any help you can offer here Bob would be greatly appreciated.

Electric Me, I think Toyota has been really reaching out in a number of ways with the new Prius. I have to say, I they're way ahead of most companies in not just dropping huge money on TV or billboards but really diversifying their marketing with this car. So kudos to them. And yes, Prius Drive Thru is part of that and we agree, it's pretty cool.

Hey Wayne, I wouldn't miss GDE/HF for the world. I'll be there Thursday night through Sunday morning to capture the whole thing in stills and on HD video.

eak354, wait for it my friend. That's next year! (I hope) I would love, and I mean LOVE to push the "Power Mode" button and see what we could do Saddle Road. But that's up to other people. Stay tuned.

Hey Ms. Vynn. I would have loved to come up through your neck of the woods. In an earlier version of the trip we did have that on the itinerary but we had to limit it and sadly, Washington got bumped. Maybe some time soon. I would love to come out there.

Tony, you rock. I'll have to look closely at your route. There's only a few places where we're taking roads that are perhaps less obvious than what most guides would suggest. I'm sure you're close.

USBsea. Maybe this fall. I would love to do a swing through New England this fall. I have some great friends up in Bangor, Boston and in rural Vermont and I love New York. We will definitely be reporting detailed MPG information.

Manks, yes, if you're going to the west it's hard to avoid California. I mean, I can't avoid the redwoods, San Francisco, Napa or Yosemite. I have family in San Diego and we're stopping over to visit Toyota HQ in Torrance. That's a lot of stuff. But I readily admit, this trip is California heavy. I'm from there so I'm biased. That said, I can't wait to see Yellowstone (we have some very cool stuff in store for you there) and see Crater Lake. I would do this trip if it was only California.

Thanks again to each of you for taking the time to comment. Please do check out our other pages and if there is anything you want along the way, just ask!

See you on the road.

-russell
one half of the Prius Drive Thru Team