Harebrained Hybrids

So last Monday I had my first encounter with one of the new Hybrid cars. It was my duty to take Rob to his Softball game on Monday. He had just gotten back from his trip to Ohio and his parents had his van that I usually drive. So to get him to his game we had to use his parents' new Toyota Prius.
Now, I've never been in a hybrid car, but I assumed it worked like every other car, where you put the key in the ignition, shift it to drive or reverse and press on the gas. Ha ha ha....yeah....that's NOT how it works.

So we get into the car and Rob hands me the "key" it just looks like a square block with buttons on it usually used to unlock and lock the door from afar. There was no key coming out of it. I looked at Rob with uncertainty and confusion...what am I supposed to do with this?
He told me it was the transmitter. The car doesn't use a key, it uses the block to transmit a signal to the car so it can turn on.....ok....cool....so how do I turn it on? Apparently there is a power button near the steering wheel....really? a power button?

Hmmm....that seems kind of cool, right? So I press the power button and the green light comes on but I don't hear anything, just the fan comes on and the radio. I try to put it into gear, and nothing happens. Rob suggested I press again, which I did, nothing happened. We played this turning on the power button at least for 15 minutes before deciding to call his sister to ask how to turn on the stupid car. I just wanted to drive and get him to his game, why does this have to be so difficult? So his sister tells me that I have to make sure that all the seatbelts are buckled in and that all the doors are sufficiently shut and all the windows have to be rolled up, and my foot has to be on the break and the e-break has to be off before I can start the car.....WOW, a little unnecessary right? I can understand the e-break and seatbelts, but the windows and my foot on the break, really? So after about 20-30 minutes of trying to figure out how to work this stupid car, we finally got it running and headed off his softball game.

What an experience, it was kind of frustrating. It also didn't help that during the time we were trying to figure out how to start the car it was like 90 degrees outside, and since the windows have to all be up it was really hot and dreadful. So I've come to the conclusion that although Hybrids are supposed to "save" energy and gas, the amount of time and energy that is put into figuring out how it works turning it on really doesn't save you anything. We should all just drive regular cars because these are just harebrained hybrids.