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E-conomy / Paul Andrews
"Smart" car is no road scholar

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Recently I came into possession of the ultimate smart — a smart car with a smart fuel system and smart-key entry. I'm talking about the Toyota Prius, a "hybrid" vehicle that somehow figures out the optimum mode — gas or electric — for moving itself forward at any given point. Watching a center monitor display, you can see miles per gallon fluctuate on a bar graph while you drive.

But the Prius reminds one of the pun inherent in "smart" — a play on words author Don Norman put to perfect use in his book, "Things That Make Us Smart." Although any techie will marvel at the Prius' gadgetry and performance, its idiosyncrasies can also "drive" one to distraction.

When the car is idling, for example, the miles-per-gallon tracker reads "00.0." Why not just blank the readout or have it say "Idle"? And while coasting, the readout goes to 99.9. It might as well display the infinity sign, since coasting isn't using any gas at all.

The Prius has a smart steering wheel, in the sense that sound, radio, cruise and other controls are built into the rim. The trouble is, they're situated at the place where my previous cars had their horn button. The first few times I went to honk the Prius, I changed radio channels instead.

Perhaps the dumbest thing the Prius does has to do with transmission control. Instead of a gearshift, the Prius has a knob on the dashboard. The knob has three settings — forward, reverse and neutral (or park).

There are two problems. First, the knob — joystick might better describe it — doesn't stay put when you move it to drive or reverse. It always reverts to the neutral position. The result is that you're never sure what gear you're in (or direction you're moving) by looking at or feeling the knob.

Toyota tried to address this (I think) by making the Prius beep whenever it's in reverse, sort of what delivery trucks do. But delivery trucks do this to warn others, whereas the Prius' beep is strictly internal. After the fourth or fifth beep, you want to take a baseball bat to the dashboard.

Worse yet, the Prius' shifting is, to me anyway, counterintuitive. To move forward you shift the knob down. Reverse is up.

For someone who has driven manual transmissions most of his life, up means forward and down means reverse. This isn't as trivial a distinction as it sounds. The first few times I parked the Prius I almost cracked into the car in front of me.

Think about how hand-eye coordination usually works. A computer mouse or joystick moves forward (up) to push the cursor ahead and down to go back. Elevator buttons for "up" (forward) are usually positioned atop buttons for "down."
 
The Prius does have one bona fide "smartness." The smart key — a chip in the remote control beeper — makes opening the doors and starting the car a snap. The car "recognizes" you and unlocks the doors automatically. The same principle works in starting the car; you press a power button on the dashboard.

Smart keys carry the inherent risk of loss or theft. But they seem to be the next logical step for any keyed-entry system, from homes to padlocks. In a perfect world, one smart key would open everything.

It should be noted that no other Prius owners — and we tend to be a clubby lot, always yakking on about our precious vehicles — have complained about any drawbacks to me. But I figure if the Prius were truly smart, it would let me disable the annoying beeping, customize my mileage panel and configure the transmission to my preferences.

Maybe some day. For now I think of my car as clever, maybe, but not really smart.

Paul Andrews is a freelance technology writer and co-author of "Gates." He can be reached at pandrews@seattletimes.com.