Prius Team invites LA & SF to meet the 2010 Prius

[orionll]

Just got home from the event - it was great!

I'll start a discussion thread with pics soon.

[V8Cobrakid]

thanks for the awesome event. i didn't take as many photos as i would have liked to. when you have the car and camera in sight.. you freeze up and lose sight of what needs to be photographed.

[aforkosh]

I too want to thank Toyota for the event. I have no pictures, as I think that most of features already have been documented here.

For those outside the Bay Area, the recent storms cleared out over the weekend, with outside temperatures in the low 60's, little wind, and clear air. It was a terrific day for the event.

It was a pleasure to meet Danny and have him listen to my critique of the site and also some general observations about the implications of some of features of the newest Safari browser (beta released last week) with respect to web forums. Priuschat handles it much better than other forums.

[RobH]

Another congratulations to the Prius Team for an excellent event. Everyone was well informed, the food was excellent, and the test drives were really fun. Too bad we couldn't take a drive down Lombard Street for a true SF experience...

One thing that amazed me was the caliber of the attendees. The trivia quiz had items on it that nobody I know would have the answers. When I complained about the question about how many cells in the battery, the guy next to me said "well isn't it about 160 something?". The correct answer is 168, but that's not something I just carry around as common knowledge. As I was fiddling around with the Nav unit looking for how to get into maintenance mode, another guy showed me how to get to it. It was like he was someone who trained Prius mechanics, but there he was just an ordinary attendee at an unveiling.

The Nav unit is clearly a new generation. The performance is noticeably faster, and the display seems changed. I didn't get a chance to see it in motion. The Nav DVD now goes into a slot behind the display, below the CD slot for the CD changer. The display rotates out of the way to reveal the slots. I wonder if there are really two drives there, or if there is only one DVD/CD drive shared by the audio system and Nav. If it's shared, then an audio DVD would probably work.

The solar panel is a 36 cell unit made by "Kyocera Automotive". Kyocera has been in the solar panel business for a long time, and is a leader in green technology.

Looking into the engine compartment shows an interesting shift in technology. The engine is bigger, and the inverter is smaller. Overall, the engine compartment is less crowded than in earlier versions. Any more shrinkage and they could actually put the 12V battery up there instead of the trunk.

The range of the remote for turning on the air conditioning is 30 meters. That's good enough to make the alarm function useful for finding your car in the parking lot!

There was mention that there are 5 trim levels available. I don't know if one of those would be a "kitchen sink" version with both parking/radar/etc. and the solar panel. The only trim level distinctions I observed on the demonstrators was driving lights (obviously higher trim), navigation, and the solar panel. There will probably be a base model with less than the demonstrators.

There will be a test fleet of 500 plug-in Prius, 125 in the US. They are looking for real world feedback on three different lithium-ion batteries. So it sounds like it's still too early to expect a volume commitment to a single design.

The Ni-MH battery is changed for the 2010. If it were only a delay for the lithium-ion, then I'd expect them to just carry over the earlier version.

Silver Pine Mica is no more. Really Toyota. The 2010 Prius is not available in green? What were you folks thinking? The Prius is not your everyday Corolla where green and blue alternate availability. Bring back the green Prius!

[patsparks]

No matter what colour Prius you get, it's green.
Well it's greener than most cars.

Thanks for the feedback guys, now what were your impressions of the drive?

[RobH]

Originally Posted by patsparks

No matter what colour Prius you get, it's green.
Well it's greener than most cars.

Thanks for the feedback guys, now what were your impressions of the drive?

Well, it was just a short drive. I stopped at an intersection, the road was clear ahead, so I <>. It <>. Compared to a Honda hybrid, it <>. Then we stopped to change drivers. It was a parallel park situation, a chance to check out the <>. <>. My wife took the wheel, but first she adjusted the <> and the <>. On our 2006, she only adjusts the <> after I've driven the car. The Toyota person switched the car to <>, and it <>. It was really weird, I never saw the <>. So there were a number of things that I really liked, <>, a few things I'd change <>, but overall <>.

[a priori]

Originally Posted by RobH

Well, it was just a short drive. I stopped at an intersection, the road was clear ahead, so I <>. It <>. Compared to a Honda hybrid, it <>. Then we stopped to change drivers. It was a parallel park situation, a chance to check out the <>. <>. My wife took the wheel, but first she adjusted the <> and the <>. On our 2006, she only adjusts the <> after I've driven the car. The Toyota person switched the car to <>, and it <>. It was really weird, I never saw the <>. So there were a number of things that I really liked, <>, a few things I'd change <>, but overall <>.

Hmm. I'm pretty sure that breached something. I don't know that it was your agreement not to write about the , but it the , and that's got to be a breach of at least!

[pfile]

thanks to toyota for putting on this event. from reading the posts regarding the earlier prius connection events, i thought this was going to be more structured, so i showed up pretty much at 11am. good thing, because after a while the test drive line was pretty long. the 'driving impressions' embargo is pretty silly - what kind of person that would be invited to this event (in other words, prius enthusiasts) would then go on to bash the car? what part of toyota's A is being CYA'd here?

[a priori]

Originally Posted by pfile

thanks to toyota for putting on this event. from reading the posts regarding the earlier prius connection events, i thought this was going to be more structured, so i showed up pretty much at 11am. good thing, because after a while the test drive line was pretty long. the 'driving impressions' embargo is pretty silly - what kind of person that would be invited to this event (in other words, prius enthusiasts) would then go on to bash the car? what part of toyota's A is being CYA'd here?

The only thing being covered here is Toyota's reputation with the general media. They have offered and are offering test drives to all major media outlets, but have imposed a March 25 release date. This is quite common and expected. If us non-media types spill the beans early, what's to hold the others from doing so? It would really spoil things for Toyota's future dealings with the press.

I'd much rather have these opportunities opened to us, so I think the embargo is quite reasonable.

[V8Cobrakid]

wait.. Danny was at the event? i was super curious who else attended. I've spoke with a few people while there. i didn't leave till around 2:20 or 2:30... i figured i would have seen everyone.

oh.. btw.. the questions were easy.

the only one i didn't like is the smart key distance.. mine seems to work around 1.9 ft.. it supposed to be 3 ft... (mine doesn't work that far away though....)