I'm heading down to San Antonio in the morning to attend a press preview of the 2013 Toyota Avalon. Obviously, I'm going to be driving around in the hybrid variant all day, so I figured if anyone has any questions, I can do my best to answer them. I'm not planning on taking a SG2 with me, so don't ask for any technical ICE temps or anything like that You can follow me on Twitter @PriusChat if you want to see answers in real time. Otherwise, you can wait for my review here on PC.
I can say I've seen this car (prototype) and sat in it, as well as looked into the trunk. There's an obvious "difference", but the trunk is still cavernous. The car itself is gorgeous and very, very comfortable. If it can hit the EPA numbers claimed, this will be a really sweet high-end Toyota for those who don't quite want the price tag of the Lexus ES300h stable-mate. Of course, you may lose out on the Bamboo trim, Mark Levinson stereo, etc., but these may be acceptable trade-offs. My questions will be: How does it perform compared to the Camry Hybrid, given the identical power train? Does it drive as comfortably as it sits? Are the capacitive touch buttons useable, or too easy to accidentally activate? Is the telematics system any better, or is it still Entune "1.0"?
I assume you reset the tripometer right away when you got in. What did you end up for displayed MPG at the end of the day?
