We've taken our new Prius Prime car on a few longer trips now and I'm just getting used to the modern amenities. "Penny" has a suite of intelligent driving features, including adaptive cruise control with a lane-keeper function. This system keeps you in the center of the lane, eerily nudging the wheel this way and that with no input from the driver. Penny is liberal with warnings for her untrustworthy human passengers, including alerts when it detects cross traffic or vehicles in adjacent lanes. A sensor array watches my face and isn't shy about reminding me to focus on the road if my eyes aren't fixed forward. Most emasculating are the proximity warnings when parking. I pride myself in my ability to parallel park, but when gliding into a spot this weekend, the maneuver triggered such a series of alarms and warnings it was clear that Penny had little confidence in my judgment. The car's systems alternate between minimizing the attention needed to drive and anxiously reminding me that my attention is essential.
When it comes to sheer volume of silicon, Penny dwarfs my 2015 Crosstrek ("Stewie"). In the latter, a stick connects me to an honest-to-god five-speed transmission. The cruise control relies on me to steer and would happily ram me into the back of the vehicle in front of me if I neglected to make a correction. Stewie's one modern amenity is a rear camera that feeds to a tiny screen on my dashboard (I remember when this was quite the party trick!).
All in all, the new technology is wonderful. The Prius has a plug-in battery and we recently went over 800 miles on a single tank of gas. The adaptive cruise control makes it the best choice for longer trips. But driving "Stewie" is a freshly sentimental experience that I'll appreciate as long as I can.
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