Revisiting the verdant north in the Toyota Prius C

A FITTING backdrop to the first commercially successful hybrid car

Photos by Tessa R. Salazar

So, this was how the main characters in the action flick “Fast & Furious 7” must have felt like at the movie’s end scene, their “one last ride” before finally parting ways.

Before the old Prius—the world’s first mass-produced gasoline-electric hybrid sedan—gets retired to make way for a new iteration, I asked for one last “senti” run with what I consider an old friend in those fast (well, not so fast) and furious days of cross-country driving chasing after energy efficiency.

Toyota Motor Philippines lent me the Prius’ younger and more compact brother, the Prius C liftback. And on the final weekend of July, I endeavored on my last run with an icon.

There was no doubt in my mind that my destination would be Cagayan Valley, where my relationship with the Prius blossomed.

In 2007, TMP invited me to the inauguration of its six-year reforestation project in Peñablanca, Cagayan Valley, a few minutes drive north of Tuguegarao City.

It was the biggest reforestation project a car company had granted to the Philippines by far, and an attempt to replicate the successful reforestation projects undertaken by Toyota Motor Corporation in China and Japan.

I drove from Manila to Peñablanca in a Prius, which was as yet unavailable in the local market. It was also my first time to drive a hybrid. It was love at first drive.

THE Prius makes the hybrid a household word.

Since then, I and the Prius crossed ways a few more times. And it wasn’t always due north. I also took the Prius sedan on an island-hopping Roro (roll on, roll off) cruise from Manila to Kalibo in Aklan Province via Mindoro island in 2011.

Fortunately, it wasn’t only yours truly who shared the wonders of driving this iconic hybrid. Since June 2009, when the Prius sedan was first made commercially available in the Philippines, and in 2012 when the Prius C first set tires here, the Prius hybrid brand had sold a total of 105 units: 72 for the sedan, 33 for the Prius C.

These numbers may be piddling compared to the tens of thousands of units of Vios or Altis sedans sold, but from the start, TMP brought the Prius here more for making a bold statement than raking in profits: the world’s number one carmaker was making inroads to the future of land transport, at a time when it was not profitable to do so.

The Prius certainly didn’t motivate the Philippine government to issue tax breaks on hybrid vehicles, thus forcing TMP to price the Prius steeply, further hurting its sales prospects.

Yet, across the Pacific, in the United States, the Prius enjoyed a much-warmer reception, and had even entered the mainstream car market. The Prius became a political statement for Hollywood bigwigs and environmental crusaders alike.

Almost 20 years after the first-generation Prius rolled out in Japan on Dec. 10, 1997, the brand has sold 3.73 million units worldwide (as of April 2016), making it the world’s top-selling hybrid car.

That year, Prius won Car of the Year Japan, and got the award again in 2009. It also bagged an award in the Automotive Researchers’ and Journalists’ Conference of the Year in Japan in 1998.

The Prius was also chosen by the Design Museum as “one of the 50 cars that changed the world.”

Sadly, TMP’s bold statement seems to have fallen on deaf ears in this part of the world (which, ironically, has been determined most vulnerable to the adverse effects of global climate change, a meteorological phenomenon largely attributed to man-made activities such as the extraction and burning of fossil fuels to power vehicles and machineries for various industries—processes hybrid cars like the Prius has been created to mitigate).

STILL looking stylish, the cockpit sports synthetic, non-animal leather

This irony was not lost on me, as I had plenty of driving, and contemplating, from Manila to Cagayan Valley and back (a total of almost 900 km) on a rainy weekend. This aptly colored Prius C (green, which is probably not a coincidence) blended very well with the vast cornfields of Ilagan City in Isabela Province.

It was already dusk, and drizzling, when I arrived at the “greenest school in the Philippines”—Cauayan City National High School. It was too dark to enter the premises and marvel at hectare-up-on-hectare of its forested land.

Upon my return to Manila, I drove to Pililla in Rizal Province, about a two-hour drive east, where about 27 giant wind turbines of the Alternergy wind farm stood majestically, producing around 54 MW of electricity—all from just collecting energy from the wind.

31.4 KM/LITER on combined runs

It was a fitting backdrop for the Prius. The future of land transport about to break out of its old shell and face, perhaps, a more receptive government and a local automobile market.

Boxed sidebar:

Impressions on a long-running hybrid

THE PRIUS C is easier to park than its bigger counterpart, and there is no irritating glare of sunlight that hounded rear passengers of the original Prius.

First-time hybrid users will still need to orient themselves a bit on some of the exclusive-to-hybrid drive controls, such as the engaging energy monitors on the dashboard, and that unnerving “no vibration” (“Is the car dead?”), and noise-free cabin when only the electric engine is working.

You have to also remove your pets in the garage who have the habit of sleeping under the cars before deciding to drive out.

Some nifty features are present, such as the keyless entry and start/stop ignition button.

WHILE idling and marveling at this pollution-free view, the electric motor takes over, making zero emission possible.

The Prius powerplant sets the hybrid apart from the conventional. The Prius and the Prius C wouldn’t have earned their legendary status if not for the Hybrid Synergy Drive technology.

The Prius C is powered by the old reliable 1.5-liter, four-cylinder 1NZ-FXE VVT-i Atkinson cycle engine that complies with standard regulations of Euro V emissions.

On economy mode, I was able to squeeze out a 31.4 km/liter fuel efficiency reading on combined highway, city and country driving.

A LONESOME Prius passes by a field of greens in Isabela.

There’s more than meets the eye, as far as the Prius’ eco-friendliness is concerned.

In building the Prius, Toyota used a new range of plant-derived ecological bioplastics made of cellulose derived from wood or grass, instead of petroleum.

DWARFED by windmills, yet its philosophy just as lofty.

The development of the Prius and its Hybrid Synergy system took over four decades, harking back to the shock of the 1970s oil crisis that prompted Toyota to begin R&D on a combined gasoline engine and electric motor. Tessa R. Salazar