Now there's no stopping the Prius from conquering the streets. The 2007 Prius Touring Edition is hot!

By what measure is the Prius "the most efficient 4-door available"? Perhaps this mean "the most efficient gasoline-engined 4-door hybrid available in California"?

It's a nice car, granted, and a significant one. But your correspondents have a duty not to parrot a manufacturer's hype uncritically! Otherwise, how will the bar be raised?

The Prius is probably the most efficient 4 door car available in the USA. The Honda Insight is a 2-door two-seater, and I can't think of any other 4-door car in the US that gets similar EPA numbers (not to mention the AT-PZEV emission rating).

There are probably some more efficient 4-door cars available in Europe and Asia, but they are probably not close to size and power of the Prius.

That's for commercially available mainstream cars I can think of, anyway.

Everyone talks about the Prius, but what about the other Toyota hybrid, the Highlander jeep? Any comments on those?

The Highlander hybrid and RX400h have good emissions (SULEV, IIRC), but the fuel economy is only good compared to SUVs of similar size. If you need a vehicle of that size, they're probably a good idea. But if you don't, they certainly are not the most eco-friendly vehicles around.

This is good news. Not because I would buy a special edition Prius, new cars being expensive, but because this lends credence to 2008 being prime time for a prius redesign.

What about the Honda Civic? It has decent numbers. Also Toyota has the Camry as a hybird.

We've covered the Camry hybrid and Civic hybrid pretty extensively. You can find the posts by using the search field in the top right of the page.

I'm not an expert on cars, so I'd like to hear what you think of J.D. Power and Associates recent evaluation of environmentally friendly vehicles. Their index is calculated on the basis of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s data about air pollution, greenhouse gases, fuel economy and J.D. Power's consumer survey. Thanks.

The popular hybrid just got a "sexier" again.
The jazzed Prius hybrid features a new European-tuned suspension and 16-inch alloy wheels and starts at $23,650, including a $580 shipping charge. Toyota should make their other models much more alluring I should say

What is really the benefits to the 2007 Touring model? Bigger wheels? Don't bigger wheels bring down the gas mileage?

We have a 2006 Higlander Hybrid and love it. Although bigger, it gets better gas mileage than our 2006 Honda Accord Hybrid, which is also a beautiful car. Just the other day we bought a 2007 Prius Touring Edition with package #5. What luxury, what simplicity. There are three people in our family, and now we are all Hybrid.

Irene

Has anyone actually recieved a 2007 Prius Touring yet? I ordered one in September, when they were first put on the Toyota webpage and still haven't recieved it. I've been told every 2 weeks from Toyota that they are making an extremely limited run and haven't sent many to the US yet. Does this sound familiar to anyone? I'm anxiously awaiting my new car, but can't help but feel that they're pulling a fast one over on the consumers (me!).

I have a touring edition now. I needed the touring model because I live in a rural, mountain area.

I only just got it, so I don't have a lot of details on the mileage. The big differeence between the regular model (1224) and the Touring model (1226) is the larger wheels and stiffer suspension. The other differences are styling.

More info is available in places like priuschat.com

I'm looking to buy a 2007 Prius for my wife. Is this a reliable car for short and long drives and good for years?