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I recently found myself sitting inside a Toyota Prius C. As some of you would know, the Toyota Prius C is supposedly a shortened Toyota Prius hybrid car and it is another one of those cars that Toyota would want us to believe can save the world. Saving the world by consuming less petrol is a very good thing. It is a good thing because it allows those who just want to use cars as transport to use less of the stuff and leave the remaining for proper petrolheads to guzzle. But this article isn't about how little fuel the Toyota Prius C sips. This article is actually how ghastly the cabin of the Prius C is. It is absolutely shocking. When I first got into the Prius C I was expecting typical Toyota build and material quality. I got Toyota build quality but it must have been from a 1970s Toyota Corolla. Yes you get to see a funky blue gearknob and a decently leather (or leatherette) steering wheel but the rest of the stuff looked like it came from the old 1973 Toyota Corolla that your 75 year old grand-uncle who lives in Kluang, Johor drives. While I am aware that a hybrid car needs to show efficiency in all aspects - from its batteries, its electric motor, its petrol engine and in this case, the lightness of the materials used so that the car is efficiently light, I believe that Toyota has taken a step too far, or a step backwards when it comes to car interiors with the Prius C. It has thin and hard plastics used in way too many places. Aside from that, the overall design of the dashboard also reminds me of a 1970s Corolla instead of being cutting edge. Try driving a Honda CRZ hybrid coupe and then get into a Prius C and you'll instantly understand what I am getting at. The material used and the overall interior design cheapens the interior of the car so much that I feel that aside from the drivetrain, the Prius C is not a worthwhile purchase. If you wanted a Prius, save a bit more and buy the full sized version or any Honda hybrid out there on sale instead. At least you can save the world and feel good at the same time. But it actually is sadder if you were a Malaysian and you wanted to buy the Prius C, it does not even have that leather wrapped steering wheel. This makes the Malaysian specced Prius C feel even more nostalgic. But nostalgia in this case isn't a good thing.

Toyota has announced that it has sold over 3 million hybrid vehicles ever since it started selling the first one way back in 1997. Other than some rather pointless boasting, the announcement also throws up some rather interesting nuggets. For example, the first ever hybrid that Toyota sold was NOT the Prius, but a Coaster EV bus. Like those minibuses that you see ferrying school children to and from school. Yeah, that one. Toyota also makes the claim that its hybrid vehicles have saved 18 million tons of CO2 emissions, as compared to if the cars were standard petrol-driven vehicles. I wonder how they made that calculation. There have been lots of debates as to whether hybrid vehicles really do help save the environment, with many arguments for and against it. I once chatted with a Toyota sales person while test driving the Prius, and he admitted that while in truth, hybrids aren't exactly the be-all-and-end-all solution to saving the Earth, at least they are doing something about it. Taking a small step if you will. Because these are developing technologies, they aren't exactly perfect yet. Even the car itself as we know it took decades to evolve to what they are today, so who are we to judge hybrid technology, or even electric car technology, as they are now? For all we know they could be as impressive in 50 years time to the cars we have now. It seems to be heading that way, with Porsche and even Ferrari unveiling hybrid cars in recent times. Perhaps these cars won't give us what we want in our lifetime, but think about it. We've had our fun, with our petrol-driven cars. Now it's the next generation's turn to experience the latest evolution in personal transport. Like it or not, alternative fuel vehicles will be the future. Just don't expect them to save the world right now.