Acceleration problem with our 2002 Prius ...

My girlfriend and I just bought a 2002 Prius. We've never had anything newer than this in the past.

The car drives great on city streets but ... when we accelerate on the freeway there's a noise that sounds and feels like its hesitating and is having trouble getting up to speed.

When the dealer picked us up in downtown Sacramento, I sat next to him for the 5 miles or so to go back to his dealership & I didn't hear any noise or hesitation.

Is this some secret of driving a Prius that we need to know ?

My gf is all upset about it and I told her its fixable and will fix the problem once we take it to a shop in San Francisco but its upsetting me too since we saved for months to get it. It was what we could afford.

Our 1994 Honda was dying and we turned it in to the state of California & they gave us $ 1500 towards our car fund.

The only other issues are the a/c doesn't seem to blow very hard or all that cold and the seats are killing our back. They feel like they're filled with stryofoam.v- WSe're going to use pillows but I guess that's the price you pay for saving on gas.