2012 Prius Mid-Cycle Refresh Official Photos Released

did they move the second cup holder out of the center console?

 

that's excellent, thank you! funny, the little things that excite me. some people like front ends, some like rear ends, i like cupholders.

 

But the open cupholder area is where you comfortably rest your forearm in the current model, at least without lifting your right shoulder. So they've sacrificed (more important) driver's comfort for (less important) rear middle passenger's comfort.

 

Most of us drive solo, in which case the top cupholder does just fine. I don't think the majority carry a passenger, but those of us who do it's really not a problem to slide back the center armrest. Only a very few of us transport 4 passengers on a regular basis, in which case the sliding arm rest would pose a problem.

Toyota obviously made this change in response to customer feedback that they'd like to access the cupholder without having to slide back the center armrest, but these customers obviously suggested this without thinking about the real world situation or the ramification of the change (i.e. losing a few inches of resting place for the forearm). Moral of this is "Be careful what you ask for."

 

Yeah, I don't think it's going to be a common complaint as the forearm isn't exactly immobile and that's just less area on which you can comfortably rest it.

 

Doesn´t the new design make the center console box smaller ?
If you take out the cup holder out of the slide-back version there is room underneath .
You cant take the cupholder away in the refresh-version so this should make it smaller from the inside !

 

I have been to the motor-show yesterday,and yes it is smaller !
In fact its kind of tiny now !
I dont know why Toyota keeps doing this .
The space of the box was quite big in Gen. 2 and they allready made it smaller in Gen.3 Part 1 but now......
We get the same hard plastic interior as we did before !
Not to mention the cover of the steering wheel which is very,very thin and it was loose by the way !
The new screen is 3-D capable but it seeems to be darker than the "old" one !?
Why Toyota dosen`t at least give the speedo a different color in contrast to the green mfd i just dont know !
It would make a major difference to the appearence of the screen-panel all together and it cant´t be a question of cost !
Why should f.e red or blue cost more than green ?
Theres a picture on the German Toyota-site where the speedo is blue next to a green mfd !
It looks so much better !
The down below glove-box just fell down as i opened it !
When i opened it at the dealer a few weeks ago,it opended in a very smooth way !
They added a few goodies ,such as standard backup-camera,touch display,double-tuner radio and power folding mirrors (they are great btw ! ) but Toyota really needs to work on the used interior or they will go down in Europe eventually !
Almost all manufacturers by now have better interior in their cars than Toyota and their vehicles are also very good equipped !
Toyota also needs to work at their appearence at such shows .
I love the Prius but they didn´t happen to impress me yesterday !

 

As I said before, be careful what you ask for in customer feedback. So congratulations, you won an easily accessible cupholder, but other things like resting surface and console space may be compromised.

 

those were pre-production units (so things being loose, etc)... but overall, you wont get plush plastics in Prius, but now at least that Toyota Touch & Go is way better than anything anyone offers in Europe, at any price.... that includes BMW and Audi which require separate SIM cars for internet connectivity as well as having to pay a LOT of money for those options.

 

"... and the new Prius is also equipped with new 15†wheel design."

Any pics?

 

See http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...9-2012-prius-getting-2012-plug-in-wheels.html

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Sorry, not the best angle but this is what the 2012 wheels looked like at the SanFran Expo.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6156/6171317596_1cb074f2f1_b.jpg

and the rest of the pics if interested..
[ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chriswrightson/sets/72157627742046136/"]Green Drive Expo SanFran - a set on Flickr[/ame]