Sneak Peek of the New Prius - #13

[Mike Dimmick]

Originally Posted by Gakubuchi

I think you are wrong. As you can see in the next picture (made by kinghuang), climate controls are under the NAV screen.

That picture alone is making me want a new Prius!

The MFD is by far the worst piece of the car. Touchscreens are such a bad idea because you have to take your eyes off the road to use it. I could control my old Focus' ventilation system and stereo by touch alone. In fact the term MFD has a different meaning in my car: 'goddammit I have to press the M.F. display again!'

I see Park is now a very small button out-of-the-way! Probably a good idea - it's easy to hit by accident (only did it once; the sudden halt, even though at only a very slow speed, was not fun and not good for the transmission, I think). I've got in the habit now, when coming to a halt, of putting on the parking brake and flipping into neutral, letting the parking brake take the strain, then put it into Park. (This is my first automatic transmission, so 'creep' is an oddity.)

Little improvements will go a long way from turning, frankly, a geek's car into one that's more liveable for the vast majority.

I almost wonder if this is going to go along Microsoft-like lines: version 1.0's barely usable, 1.1 fixes the bugs in 1.0, 2.0 is workable but quirky - 3.0 takes over the world!

[Gakubuchi]

Originally Posted by Mike Dimmick

...I see Park is now a very small button out-of-the-way! Probably a good idea - it's easy to hit by accident (only did it once; the sudden halt, even though at only a very slow speed, was not fun and not good for the transmission, I think). I've got in the habit now, when coming to a halt, of putting on the parking brake and flipping into neutral, letting the parking brake take the strain, then put it into Park. (This is my first automatic transmission, so 'creep' is an oddity.)

Maybe the "P" button works only when the car is not moving? It could be nice that if you hit it by accident while driving, the seat gives you a small electric shock so you won't hit it again anymore

Originally Posted by Mike Dimmick

Little improvements will go a long way from turning, frankly, a geek's car into one that's more liveable for the vast majority.
I almost wonder if this is going to go along Microsoft-like lines: version 1.0's barely usable, 1.1 fixes the bugs in 1.0, 2.0 is workable but quirky - 3.0 takes over the world!

That's possible. Any company has to improve its products over time... Usually it takes two or three versions to have a "wow" product. I think this version of the Prius (2010) will have this wow effect. Previous version was also very nice, don't get me wrong, but this one is... well... I'm in love with it!

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Marc Vallribera i Ros
Writing from Catalonia. Please excuse me if my english is bad...

[Gakubuchi]

I was looking at the interior pics of the new Lexus RX 450h and found that it has a gauge in the instrument cluster that shows similar information as the peek we are discussing here:


You can see CHARGE and POWER "modes", so I guess it will show whenever you are using more power (white zone: full power electric+fuel), just the right proportion (green zone: electric plus a few fuel) or recharging the batteries (blue zone: no fuel and using brake effect to recharge the batteries).
But the question of where it is located in the Prius remains unanswered


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Marc Vallribera i Ros
Writing from Catalonia.