Rethinking my relationship with my car

I've now owned and driven a Prius for almost two months, and the experience is causing me to think differently about my car and my relationship to it. What's causing this change is not the fact that the car is a hybrid; instead, it's some of the tech in the car.

For example, the default for the central display is to show you your current fuel consumption. You accelerate hard, and down goes your MPG. Take it slow and easy, and you might keep MPG high. I frankly suck at this aspect of driving, and as a result Bill is kicking my butt in the MPG race: In cold weather, he averages around 47 MPG, while I'm at 38 or 39. I am, though, trying, and not just for the good of the environment; the display is encouraging me to try.

I've also found that I've quickly come to expect and rely on the way the Prius recognizes you from your key fob. You never use a key; you just keep the key fob on you. I put it in my pocket in the morning and never touch it again. Put your hand in the driver's door, and that door unlocks. Put your hand in the front passenger door, and the whole car unlocks. When you get out, you press a little black button on either door (or the rear lift handle, which will also recognize you and unlock), and you've locked the car.

In effect, the car has joined my personal network of devices--and I haven't even yet mated my iPhone to the car's Bluetooth speaker system!

Now, when I go to drive one of our other cars, they feel dumb; I mean, I have to insert a key. What's up with that?

In another example, I have for years been a militant fan of stick shifts. Not only is the Prius an automatic, it almost has no shift at all--just a little nubbin of a knob on the dash to the right of the wheel, like a vestigial appendage a creature no longer really needs. The car doesn't want you to shift, because it knows it'll do a better job--and the odds are that it's right.

Though I do sometimes still long for heavy metal, raw speed, and street racing, all in all, I quite like the car. It really is moving me away from being an active driver and toward being a passenger. After all, if it can do all this, why can't it finish the job and drive me to work while I nap or, more likely, do email?