Latest spy shows of 2010 Prius, with Interior!

[spwolf]

Originally Posted by ManualOnly

This "concept" drawing was published by a Japaneses website dedicated to gen-3 Prius on 9 Aug 2008 <Note right-hand drive>

Seems like their snoop infor is pretty much on the spot...and yeah, even the Japanese finds the design controversial.

what else was posted on those sites? any other info?

[DeadPhish]

I like the look and the placement of the switchware. It won't be much of an adjustment IMO because stylistic preferences are among the least strong buying emotions. I could not consider going backward to some average vehicle with mediocre fuel economy.

From another perspective the whole purpose of being in business is to sell units, the more the better. The current design was/is so polarizing that huge segments of the populace won't even consider it. Now more may consider it.

In the end it's only about generating sales units.

[sugar land dave]

• I don't think the "spied" interior could look any worse to me if it had been done by a 5 year-old child.

• The Prius does not need a sporty interior. It is not a sports car.

• To think Toyota must change to sell more, when in fact they sell just about all they can currently produce, is just an excercise in nonsense. Did I miss some announcement about the Prius no longer being #1?

• If this is indeed a new direction towards cluttering the open interior, Toyota can forget about me trading for the new model. I will just drive the current Prius into the ground. By that time, many other green auto options should be available.

[Tideland Prius]

Originally Posted by sugar land dave

• I don't think the "spied" interior could look any worse to me if it had been done by a 5 year-old child.

• The Prius does not need a sporty interior. It is not a sports car.

• To think Toyota must change to sell more, when in fact they sell just about all they can currently produce, is just an excercise in nonsense. Did I miss some announcement about the Prius no longer being #1?

• If this is indeed a new direction towards cluttering the open interior, Toyota can forget about me trading for the new model. I will just drive the current Prius into the ground. By that time, many other green auto options should be available.

I don't know about you but looking at the other forums where this was posted, the majority of the comments are positive. A lot of people out there that would never consider a Prius are actually liking this new interior.

[06prius]

I like it.

I will have to see it in person to see if makes me feel cramped but on first look, I like it a lot.

[JamesWyatt]

Are we the best group of people to judge aesthetics? Seriously?

People in my area who I see driving Prius are not exactly what you would call hip or trendy. Most people I see driving a Prius here are older, pasty white, and have unkept hair, out-of-style glasses from 1985, etc. I think if they got out of the car they'd be found wearing plaid tourist shorts, white socks pulled up to the knees, and funny black shoes.

And I think I've seen only one other Prius since I bought mine in early 07 being driven by a sub 40-year.

Here is who I see in Prius around here (ain't Texas great?):

Male Prius driver:



Female Prius driver:



With the occasional psycho:



Let's widen the fold.

[spwolf]

Originally Posted by Tideland Prius

I don't know about you but looking at the other forums where this was posted, the majority of the comments are positive. A lot of people out there that would never consider a Prius are actually liking this new interior.

every time new version of the car comes out, a lot of people (online) who own previous version get really defensive.

what i find interesting is that this happens mostly online (vocal minority?) and in real life (dealership customers), comments are exact opposite.

It happened with Yaris, Corolla, Land Cruiser, every Lexus I was around when it launched... figured it out as part of life :-).

[brick]

Originally Posted by sugar land dave

* The Prius does not need a sporty interior. It is not a sports car.

On this point I have to disagree for several reasons. For one thing, I don't buy into the argument that a car with bland performance must have a bland interior. In some ways the Prius is just a car of a different sport; the best at getting the most from the least. It has searing performance of a kind that we can use to its fullest every day. Why not allow its form to convey that? I also believe that aesthetics are incredibly important not just because of what is represented, but because that is the one thing a car can give you without forcing you to burn a drop of extra oil. A designer can be guilt-free in using that to mold a driver's perception of his vehicle. So use it!

On a more personal level, I am probably unique amongst devoted Prius-heads in that I absolutely hate the interior aesthetics of the current model. I find the touch screen ironically impersonal, the straight-across dash uninviting, the vast expanse between wheel and speedo...vacant, and the unused space between the console and the dash is reminiscent of my dad's 20 year-old plow truck. My relationship with a car tends to be very personal, yet the cockpit feels more like that of an appliance. It functions, but there is nothing there to be excited about. To me, the spy shots and concept sketch are a big step toward remedying my particular gripes.

[DeadPhish]

Originally Posted by sugar land dave

• I don't think the "spied" interior could look any worse to me if it had been done by a 5 year-old child.

• The Prius does not need a sporty interior. It is not a sports car.

• To think Toyota must change to sell more, when in fact they sell just about all they can currently produce, is just an excercise in nonsense. Did I miss some announcement about the Prius no longer being #1?

• If this is indeed a new direction towards cluttering the open interior, Toyota can forget about me trading for the new model. I will just drive the current Prius into the ground. By that time, many other green auto options should be available.

No but you might have missed the announcements from nearly every other vehicle maker that they are getting into the hybrid business ... and ... you definitely did miss the announcement that Toyota is planning to increase sales by 70% next year. To do so they have to appeal to a broader audience....possibly even at the expense of a loss or two.

Two gained..one lost is a net plus.

[donee]

Hi James,

While I am in my 50s now, I have had the same waste and hip span since 21. If anything my thigh circumference has gone down, and my knee span is less. I have always had a problem with narrow seats in cars. When I fly in airplanes, in an aisle seat stewardess hip check my shoulder each time they walk by. When the middle seat has a similar sized or bigger guy in it, I am leaning out in the aisle shoulder to shoulder with that guy. I occaisionaly get accused of leaning out on purpose. More agressive stewardesses have given me whip lash, when they hip check me from behind, unexpectedly. This typically happens on one of them AA MD-80s. Part of the Prius design was to accomadate a world-wide driver physique. This goes absolutely against that. The center box in the present Prius actually pushes me about 1/4 inch off the seat center right now.

Brick,

Well, from a design point of view, that is exactly what they are turning the car into. A Euro-bland mess. The screen is not funtional there, its just something you look at when the car is not moving. It would be dangerous to use it as the tool its supposed to be, and many of us do use it as. The first aftermarket Prius add on will be a periscope screen hood - get the veiw of the MFD back where its supposed to be! The car is narrow, so what did they do with the new interior, use up all the sideways space with with a useless piece of furniture, rather than keeping it opened up. And 25 mm wider interior makes the additional space for each passenger less than 1/2 an inch. The shifter is far away from the steering wheel. So, that creates a greater delay in getting the hand from the shifter to wheel. So, that means one cannot do competent two-handed steering for a longer period of time after shifting. DUMB. The traditional position for a shifter is down there because its a metal tube that goes through the floor to the transmission. Nothing like what is in the Prius. SO, why put it there? No reason, its what people in traditional cars expect, even thought its a STUPID place for it to be given the Prius does not have a metal rod that goes through the floor to the transmission. Besides long legged people have problem knocking the present shifter into neutral while driving down the road, now. With this design EVERYBODY will.

This was my pet pieve with the SL2, another narrow car. But if they had used narrow, or vertically mounted car radio, and other fittings, there would have been plenty of space. Instead they use this 9 inch wide radio positioned low, and a console to match. STUPID!!! My right knee is still sore from that car, 3 years later!!!


Industrial Design is more about how something is to be used then how it looks. It seems to me that Prius went up-visibility in Toyota, and every tom-dick-and-harry designer fought to get on the next gen project. The guy with the best inside polictics won - and then he proceeded to put his ego into the car, rather than something that WORKS!!!