The 85 Percent Solution; Toyota's Prius is the closest `green machine' yet to being what we'd call a `real' car.

We know AutoWeek readers are a savvy bunch of consumers, so it comes as no surprise that many of the respondents to our call for owners of Toyota's hybrid Prius are not only car enthusiasts but techno-geeks as well. Many of the respondents said they placed orders for their cars months before the Prius went on sale, with several saying they bought the car based simply on all the technology it contained. That the car is a good driver is a benefit.

What's the big deal? The Prius is the second mass-produced gasoline/electric hybrid to hit the market, and unlike the other green machine, the Honda Insight, Toyota's version of the future of automotion is a little closer to the cars we know and love.

But having said that, the Prius, as noted by many of its owners, is not the be-all and end-all of automotive transportation. ``This car will do everything necessary for 85 percent of the driving done in America,'' wrote one reader. While you will certainly never confuse the Prius with a sports car-and you're not going to be able to impress anyone with smoky burnouts-nearly all respondents agreed that if this is the future of the automotive industry, well, things could be a lot worse.

Honda's Insight is somewhat limiting in its appeal because of its two-seat layout. But the Prius, looking much like a Toyota Echo, comes complete with four doors and a trunk. Beneath the hood lies an extremely sophisticated powertrain driving the front wheels. Power is supplied by both a 1.5-liter, 70-horsepower gasoline engine and a 44-horsepower AC permanent-magnet electric motor-generator. A smaller motor-generator is used to start the gas engine and supplies a portion of the electric motor's power, along with recharging 40 nickel-metal hydride batteries stored beneath the trunk. These futuristic components propel a vehicle that has the interior space of a Camry in a car that is six inches shorter than a Corolla.

Take a look at the window sticker and you see that unlike gasoline-only-powered cars, Prius actually has a better EPA city mileage figure, 52, than on the highway, 45. Many readers ...