NEW CAR COMING

On November 17, last year, we ordered a new Prius Plug in Hybrid, a PIP.  This is something we have thought about for maybe the last 5 years from the time I first heard about the concept of plug in electric cars combined with hybrid technology.  At the time we were driving a regular Prius, a 2001 model.  I said at the time, "Let's drive this car till the new plug in hybrid comes out and then trade it in."  Well, it didn't work out that way.  Our first Prius was hit in the left front corner while I was taking our grandson home from swimming lessons.

The insurance company totaled the car and we replaced it with a used 2005 model.  In November, Toyota Company opened a window to pre-order a PIP with delivery to be sometime in the spring of 2012.  From then till now, we have been kept updated with progress from assembly to loading on a ship in Japan.  I have been tracking the ship, the Continental Highway, from it's port in Japan to it's entrance into the Columbia River at Astoria.  These photos are screen shots my computer screen showing progress of the ship.  The ship should arrive in Portland around midnight tonight and hopefully we can take delivery of our new car next week.




The new model is predicted to achieve 87 mpg on average.  Timely in this period of declining supplies and rising prices of gasoline.  I'll keep you posted on how this works out.  It will basically perform as an electric car for our short trips into Canby and surrounding neighborhoods. It charges in 3 hours from a regular 110 volt receptacle in our garage. Then, if we decide to take a trip to Seattle, it will revert to a regular Prius and automatically shift from electric to gasoline motor.