While I can buy and drive any new car, I prefer my 14 year old Prius v.

You know you want a Gen 5.
You only live once. Maybe.

 

You'd love the way the Gen 5 wants to steer itself, lol.

 

Toyota keeps stripping out content with each successive gen, imposing increasingly puzzling styling exercises, and foisting cost-cutting changes as improvements.

I’d be interested, but don’t like where they’re going. Gen 3 has more than its share of foibles, the two main ones totally their short sighted and untested lapses, but at least I know them.

 

Comma4 is the droid you're looking for.

 

Regarding the problems with new cars video, I can say my Camry avoids most of them. It’s got physical HVAC controls, 16” tires in the LE trim, and Toyota has been making hybrids reliable for a couple decades so no engine or transmission problems. It does offer pay to play services, but I just ignore them in favor of free alternatives from (in my case) Android Auto.

In fact, the physical HVAC controls are a functional improvement of the 2026 Camry over my previous 2009 Prius, which was a real pain when the screen went out because I could no longer directly control the HVAC system. If the screen on the Camry goes out, it only controls entertainment and maps. It’s much less of a problem.

 

I had a look at the owner's manual. To be kind: they are physical buttons, but hardly eyes-on-the-road capable. Just for example, say you want to change vent mode: you need to look down, identify one diminutive button in a row of identical buttons, push it, decipher the glyph to determine if it's the mode you want, and if not, repeat.

This is what I'd like to see:

 

The front of the last generation 4Runner includes a black strip (I would prefer to call it a gash), drooping down from the headlights. The rear of the Camry of that generation exhibits the same styling feature. Who was behind that? Was the designer hoping to start a trend, reminiscent of the tailfins on the late 50's cars? Fortunately, I was not interested in purchasing either of those vehicles, and in the current generation of those models they wised-up and eliminated the "gash". Unfortunately, a similar styling embellishment seems to have migrated to the new BZ (which I could be interested in purchasing). Hopefully, they will get rid of it by the time I am ready to buy.

 

i loved my 2012, but the gen 4 and 5 turned me off. very happy with my 2023 bolt. i have to say, gm really surprised me.

 

At least the BZ lost the garish wheel well "protection":

 

I like it, but it’s uge

 

The Prius V is a fine car. Not my flavor but still an excellent taxi.

Bob Wilson