Camry Hybrid

Finally took an extended drive in a Camry Hybrid. Man, it's a sweet car. The driving is much more refined than the Prius, and the seats....

The Prius has the worst seats of any car I've owned in the last 20 years. And the Camry has some of the best seats I've been in. My factory leather Prius seats are put to shame compared to the cloth seats of the Camry Hybrid I drove.

I didn't like the displays in the Camry. Though the electroluminescent display looks really cool, the dash is much too crowded. The tiny little MFD tries to do too much in too little space, and the mpg meter, while it looks slick, is much less usable than the Prius's (then again, I guess Camry owners will be less obsessed with measuring economy). Maybe I'd get used to it after a while, but there's enough in the dash to be distracting and difficult to read. In comparison I think the Prius's dash in elegant in in its simplicity. Note that I didn't drive the Camry with the nav system; if they moved some of the dash displays to the nav display, it might be a big improvement. I've also come to appreciate the sense of space the Prius's layout gives you.

With the Camry, you don't get the same sense of the car being different. It has some of the Prius trickery (shutting down at lights, for example), but otherwise it feels much more like other cars.

Of course, the Prius turns the tables when it comes to cargo space. Those hybrid batteries really take a bite out of trunk space.

I'd considered getting a Camry Hybrid before I bought my Prius, but decided that if I'm going to get a hybrid, I ought to go all the way. Had I actually test drive both cars first (rather than just the Prius), it might have been a much more difficult decision. I tell myself that getting the cleaner, more fuel-efficient car was The Right Thing, but my Prius suddenly seems... less.