Convenience, Comfort for the Long-Haul
It is the house as vehicle, or the vehicle as house. Put it this way: When you are going on a long, sometimes rough road trip in a fully equipped 2016 Toyota 4Runner Limited sport-utility vehicle, you aren’t leaving home without any of the things that make a home a home. Everything is there, or certainly there with the aid of easily portable electronic equipment. For 2016, that includes fully integrated cellphone navigation, which is...
A Smarter, Sleeker Hybrid From Toyota
Back in the dark days of automotive history, fuel was cheap and plentiful and Detroit dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Then the Prius came along, offering the first practical hybrid solution, and became the bestselling car in California. Almost a decade later, fuel is cheap and plentiful again, and a changed world awaits the latest iteration of the world’s most successful hybrid. Since the debut of the original, the road has become busy...
A Great Hybrid Gets Even Better
Toyota Prius is easy to mock. It’s shaped like a clog, has an eye-crossing split window hatch, is as fun to drive as a hot dog cart and it is the vehicle of choice for many cabbies, who are unequivocally the worst drivers on the road. The main reason the Prius gets mocked, however, is because it is the very best at what it was made to do: get people to their destination using the least amount of gas possible. The fourth-generation...
Auto Review: Leading the Pack of Midsize Pickups
Mean-spirited midsize pickups shook me into a denim and tie-dyed froth in the ’70s . I looked like some sort of wobbly hippie-dippy milkshake when I poured myself out of those trucks — and that was after just a 10-minute trip to the grocery store. My first puny pickup — a tinny, mustard-colored ’77 Datsun that I bought after extended exposure to the Grateful Dead and Elvis Costello — bounced and vibrated so badly that I could not see...
Auto Review: Tacoma Equally Adept, on or off Road
After three days of city and highway driving, I was ready to dismiss the 2016 Toyota Tacoma pickup as a very nice, very tall sedan. One of those citified trucks. It’s so quiet, cushy and comfortable that it hardly seemed to be a truck at all. The plush seats, lush suspension, refined interior and single-finger steering lulled me into a Barcalounger-like state of relaxation. Floating above traffic, I imagined the best use of this...
