Renault Clio 1.2 v Toyota Prius T4

I got delivery of my new company car this week - hurrah! Strange considering those who ordered Fords in my company wont have theirs for another three months and there isn't even a Prius manufacturer in the country.

So this week I swapped this:

Renault Clio 1.2 (2008) hire car with about 4000 miles on the clock.

For this:

Toyota Prius T4 (2008) with about 150 miles on the clock.

I settled straight into trying to prove to myself that the Prius was the right choice for me. Over the last 6 weeks or so of driving the Clio supermini, I kept a careful check on the miles per gallon I was managing to get over my normal driving route (mainly heavy motorway traffic on my commutes to Leeds and country driving on my commutes to Manchester). With the supermini 1.2 I was able to get on average 39.7mpg over the full 6 weeks. There were a few drives on which I managed to get it up as high as 43mpg with some concerted effort.

So in my first week of driving the Prius I have tried to use my normal driving style (albeit a little like a grandad as Lucy would tell you). Just to get a fairly like for like comparison (although the Prius is obviously much more spacious and heavier). So far I have managed an acceptable 52.9mpg.

In future weeks I plan to increase the grandaddedness of my driving style to see if I can't get that up a little. I will probably be going to Rattling the Kettle for a few tips on how to go about it (this may have to wait until late January due to the impending Morocco trip and some business in Canada).

Based upon my cig packet calculations the Prius would save me £460 of fuel per year (plus the additional tax benefits it holds). I think I should be able to get that figure up a little.

A New Prius

Though this really has not been the top of my mind this week, mainly due to the fact that my office has just laid off 15% of its workforce - I have just put an order in for a new company car - a Toyota Prius T4.

It was basically down to a battle between the Prius and the Mondeo Diesel Titanium, and a Ford Focus. The Prius had a number of things working against it for me:

• Its a fairly old car - having been released back in 2003. The Toyota dealer I spoke to made me aware of the new Prius coming out in 2009 which will achieve way more MPG. The Prius essentially also looks a bit dated; and
• I love diesels (due to their power, torque, drivability and fuel consumption relative to petrols (excluding the Prius obviously)), and like manuals;

But essentially I did the sensible thing and opted for the Prius based upon:

• The taxation rates being extremely low;
• The relative cost of diesel and petrol at the moment will save me a shed tonne of money;
• I spend most of my driving time stuck in heavy traffic - so performance is not that important to me;
• It makes some kind of statement (whether it is the one I want or not);
• It has cool gadgets on the dashboard;
• My friends won't take the p*s out of me;
• And to be honest - I really should figure out how these things work!

So it looks like I will be receiving delivery in around 10 weeks or so. I shall spend my time wisely perusing Rattling the Kettle's "Maximising Gas Mileage in a Toyota Prius". Although I shall probably be putting petrol in mine.