As I explained in my last blog post, we bought a new Nissan Altima Hybrid a couple of days ago. My impressions of it so far:

"Interesting" route choices on the Navigation system: some of its recommendations have been spot-on, but others have just been in the "wth?" category. It was able to recommend the fastest (in my experience) route from Marlboro to Grafton (495 S to the Pike, btw), but downtown Worcester to Grafton was just bizarre. It decided it didn’t like 290 or 146, and instead sent me on 122A, where I needed to wait at a school crossing for 4-5 minutes. It also couldn’t find the Worcester Registry of Motor Vehicles, so I had to look up the address manually and then enter it in. I haven’t started the XM-Traffic trial yet, so this performance may improve.

It’s less gas-efficient than I thought it would be. I’m still getting pretty good mpg, but in order to get the top efficiency, it’s actually a bit of work; very slow and steady acceleration and moderate speed are the only way to produce the best results.

The CD changer (MP3 compatible) doesn’t seem to like discs with more than 660MB of data. I wasted two CD’s figuring this out.. the first was pushing the limit at 725MB (overburn), but I thought the second at 690MB would work. Once I got a disc working, though, it sounded great.

The keyless entry is very cool – the only trouble is, where do you put your key-chain while you’re driving?? I’ve been plopping them in the drink holder in the center console for now.

Daylight Running Lights is a Canadian-model-only thing. I guess it’s understandable with the strain on the engine/battery, but I got used to my lights being on all the time in the Honda. On the Altima, the "Auto" headlight setting turns the lights on when it senses it’s dark out, but I haven’t yet experienced how it will function in cloudy, rainy, or foggy weather. I’m tempted to just block the light sensor and have it function with the lights on all the time for safety.