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Swapped my Toyota Prius-Now I Drive a Hyundai Elantra Hybrid

14th April 2025, 18:33 by Kanad Kalasur

Based on my driving pattern and the fact that we are in Texas (everything here is huge, including driving distances) - Hybrid was the first filter.

BHPian mmxylorider recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Background - Well, the family (of 4) was coming to the point where one of the kids would join the workforce in few months. She was considering a full time job for an year while next steps on further education was being mulled upon and this required an independent transport solution aka "own car". My son who is away at college has the Accord (our first car) as his beater and she needed something that was reliable, lower footprint for city based driving and the right (desired) internal accessories for Gen Z. The Prius fit that requirement quite well, with Bluetooth, rear camera and keyless entry/button start. Pretty much buttons for everything. She is one happy human. Except - it was MY car. What do I do?

Solution - Buy a new vehicle for myself. But which one? There are so many choices here that I needed a starting point that eliminated a good percentage of options. Based on my driving pattern and the fact that we are in Texas (everything here is huge, including driving distances) - Hybrid was the first filter. Second was price point (<30K) and third one was others which includes HP, MPG, Make, features etc. There was the factor of the tariffs increase that was playing in my mind. If I have to buy, might as well now than later!

Contenders -
Based on the above filters, I was able to get the field narrowed down to following (and in order of 'take a look')
1. Toyota Prius
2. Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid
3. Hyundai Elantra
4. Kia Niro

A brief mention that the Prius Prime (plug in variant) was being considered but the extra cost compared with my daily driving and pure electric range of about 30 miles (in real world) was not worth it and it made a graceful exit. But the car itself is fantastic in physical form. There was another late entrant that I will bring in later.

Week 1 - Test Drive Day
Armed with whatever info I could gather and stats, one fine saturday morning we made our way to North Austin where showrooms for the above vehicles are within a half km linear distance.
First Stop - Toyota : Post the initial small talk and fact finding mission from the sales guy, the Prius was brought in. THe top trim at that with all the bells and whistles. Sat in with the sales person trying to get in the rear and struggling big time. THe rear head space is a luxury to someone who is 5'4". The sales person at close to 6' gave up and so did we. Not because of the rear head space but the interiors were very 'busy' with buttons for everything and making me feel boxed in. The new Prius is very stylish on the outside but not my cuppa tea.
Next up was the Corolla Cross Hybrid. Now this was an interesting candidate. Ticked all the right boxes and is a Toyota with it's reliabilty. Driving experience was good but the refinement felt off, Both wife and I shortlisted this.
Next up Hyundai. We met with the sales person who worked with us on the Tucson 2 years ago and quickly got the test drive set up. Now the Elantra was competing with the Corolla Cross. Two different segments but the Elantra had some good things going for it. It was more stylish, better features, smoother ride.
Off to Kia we went. It was the Niro hybrid we were looking at. Did the test drive and it completely blew the Corolla cross on pretty much everything except the combined horse power. Hmm things were getting interesting.

Decided to leave and sleep on this. Decision point couple of days later was
1. Niro was out - While seemingly good on all fronts, just did not see a lot of them on the roads. That was the primary factor of leaving it out.
2. Prius was out - THe new model is gorgeous on the outside but the insides are a little tight.
3. Since it was now the Elantra and the Corolla cross, decided to test drive the Corolla Sedan hybrid to make it a sedan to sedan comparison.

Week 2 - Test drive day.
It was a pointed agenda. Test drive the Corolla Cross and the Sedan models. This time with my daughter for company. THe Sedan test drive was very bland as the car itself was looking plain. The only thing going for the Corolla was the brand name of Toyota and the mileage. The Cross was a better vehicle at this time. Went by Hyundai again for my daughter to drive the Elantra. Contenders now were
1. Elantra HYbrid
2. Corolla Cross Hybrid.

Week 3 was spent researching the trims and calling up other dealerships for their quotes and inventory matches. Found a promising deal with a Hyundai dealership at my Son's college town. Drove down and went to the dealer with my son. He also got the opportunity to drive the Elantra. At that time - all of us had an chance at the wheel of multiple cars and the Elantra for sure. The choice was pretty much made. Got a price quote from that dealer which was ok.

Week 4 - THe idea was to go the local dealer, work out some financials, put down some holding money and take delivery later that week. Things transpired differently and with the sales person stacking on some really good offers, I put down the final sign 90 minutes after walking in. I was now the owner of a Brand new Hyundai Elantra Hybrid (Blue Trim) with White exterior and grey interiors.

It's exactly a week since the car came home and I pushed posting this out as I had plans for a Houston trip on Thursday. So 1 week of ownership and theres about 500 miles on the clock.

Pictures and Trip experience, features etc in next post tomorrow. Stay Tuned!

It's been about a month since the purchase and it has been a busy month with the end of the quarter and Indian fiscal calendar. But as mentioned in the last post, here are some pics of the car from multiple angles.

1. Rear Quarter view - My favorite

2. Front view

3. Front quarter

4. Front quarter - driver side

5. Side view

6. Driver cockpit

7. Rear Seats

8. Two USB-C charging ports for the rear seat occupants

9. Boot space - the crate is my solution to keeping trunk contents from moving around as well as a convenient way to get shopping bags into the home at one shot. Bungee cords keep the crate anchored inside properly.

10. Main entertainment screen - decent in size and in right proportion to the dashboard size. Comes with knobs for volume etc (as opposed to touch buttons)

11. Trip Meter 1 - Reset to zero for each ride. A convenient way to know how much distance is remaining without looking at maps.

12. Trip Meter 2 - Reset when you refuel. Useful to compare with the full tank to full tank method

13. Trip Meter 3 - This is your choice. Right now it's set to the time the car was purchased. However, I set the second one in all my cars to the last time it was serviced. The second number on each trip is the time in HH/MM for that trip. In essence, X hrs and Y mins since it was refueled or last serviced. The odo as of today is close to 1300 miles with about 35 hrs spent in the car. That's 5 % of the time since purchased. 95% of the time it's parked !!

14. Wireless Car play connected. That's one convenient technology

15. Media options

16. Car gets a digital temp gauge

17. With Autohold on, one gets this message and a warning chime when the car in front starts moving. In India, the audible warning would the car behind honking!