Silent Running
Silent Running
March 1, 2013 by Taylor Studios
Back in the days before the Meltdown of 2008, gas prices were climbing higher every day and everyone was trying to get rid of the gas-guzzler they were driving. Our president (followed within a year by our Design Manager) decided to buy a Toyota Prius to make her commute easier on the wallet. She ran the numbers and decided that the company needed one also. So, we have matching black Priuses (Prii?) in our parking lot.
The company Prius gets a lot of use. I’ve used it mostly locally, but it’s a nice highway car on my occasional trips to Chicago. It goes to a lot of airports and regional sales calls. It has a touch screen in the middle of the console that shows multiple types of info, but a nice hybrid aspect is the screen showing your mileage as stacked green cars. Then you can also try to get your little battery-level indicator filled to the top with green in the Energy Monitor screen by gliding into your parking spot, or rolling to a stop at intersections. Positive feedback works.
However, this is not a normal car. We have to give new employees at the offices a Prius Primer, so that they don’t get stuck at the side of the highway with a car that won’t turn on. Yes, turn on. This was the first car I drove that (back in 2006) had a key fob, so I was off-balance enough about that, but then you push a button to start the car. And you better have your foot on the brake when you do so, or else it acts like it’s got a hangover. The first time the motor shut off when I was stopped at a stoplight about gave me a heart attack. And you push a button to put it in Park. The most alarming part about a Prius may be when someone drives past you going below 30mph. You don’t hear it. You catch a peek out of the corner of your eye of this ungainly UFO that silently swoops by, and your ears start apologizing for not alerting you.
Have you gone electric? What’s it like to drive a Volt? A Leaf? Should electric cars have theme music playing on external speakers so that pedestrians know that they are coming? I’m all ears!