Actually, though, I’d ridden in a Prius before, just never driven one. An old beater of a Prius owned by Doug Robinson. Bedecked with surf stickers (he’s from Santa Cruz, after all), the car, or more specifically, the car’s batteries, were on their last legs. In order to get it functioning again after his midnight drive over the Sierra Crest from the Pacific, we coasted downhill in Pine Creek Canyon towards the Owens Valley charging batteries under beckoning walls of granite. I sat in the passenger seat enraptured by the computer display that showed the interface between the electric and gas motors, keeping my eye on the battery as it whispered back to life. “This ain’t no Hollywood Prius,” Doug said.

Pulling out of the Hertz rental car lot in Vegas I again found myself looking at the display. The Prius’ display makes you rethink, even relearn how you drive. Accelerate too fast and the gas engine kicks in. You get about the same MPG’s as an SUV. The reverse is true when it comes to slowing down. Red light ahead means you can lay off the gas and get the same gas mileage as a horse. All cars and trucks, hybrid or not, should have this display if for nothing else but to teach us to drive more efficiently.

But how would the Prius handle the rutty roads out to Black Velvet Canyon? It was spring break, the campground bursting with tents, and we had our eye on doing some routes on Windy Peak to get away from the crowds. Normally we take our Toyota truck when we’re residing in Bishop, CA. Even with its two-wheel drive the higher clearance makes it easy to attempt 4x4-only recommended roads. The Prius squatted on the road like a big white treadless shoe. And somehow I found it difficult to picture a roomful of Prius engineers tapping their pocket holders, wondering if they should heighten the clearance in order to attract the climber market. (But they should, and if I had the funds, I’d be first in line to buy a hybrid Toyota truck.)