One of my absolute favorite thing about my Prius is how solid-state everything is. It really feels like the Toyota engineers went out of their way to throw the people working on their cars a bone.

The hybrid battery is super-easy to reach, and since Toyota stuck with NiMH for so long, it's extremely reliable across temperatures, and the cells are dirt cheap.

I have to help family members with car repairs every so often, and the Prius not having a power steering pump, an alternator, a starter motor, or even a normal transmission, means that it's actually feasible to stay on top of repairs as a non-mechanic.

In my brother's Ford fusion, it's a totally different experience, where it feels like Ford cut every single corner they could. I understand that their sedan line was dying, and I could really see why.