Latest spy shows of 2010 Prius, with Interior!

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.

 

• 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 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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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!!!

 

Maybe you should take a test drive before you web-wheel it all the way to the crusher.

The point I was making had nothing to do with being overweight, only that the typical Prius buyer is not the person they are directly targeting now. So put your slide rule back in the desk drawer and your Bic™ pen back in your pocket protector.

Ever sat in the new Civic? It's much more wrap-around and cramped-feeling yet they sell like hotcakes. I for one would never buy a Civic because of it. The open feeling IS something I love about the Prius. BUT, that doesn't mean that Toyota made the wrong design for their bottom line.

Let's see how well they sell before we decide who's "stupid".

 

What good does it do them to trade one set of buyers for another? Do they really think they'll get more new buyers compared to those that have already bought?

If that's the new interior, I'm in a rush to get an '09 and then keep it running until I can go EV.

 

What he said.

The new design is a step backwards as far as clean, modern industrial design goes. Even if it takes up no driver space, it VISUALLY infringes on space. It makes the car look smaller. And it adds nothing to increase efficiency or usability. On the contrary, it makes it worse.

It's stupid. They're fixing something that isn't broken and making it worse.

 

Actually, no. Not ok. Having the parking brake be a handbrake is one thing, but this thing is rather.... ahem..... phallic.

I don't consider this an 'upgrade' at all.

 

Cars are alot like restaurants when it comes to customer satisfaction and loyalty. By understanding your niche, you can satisfy your customers and they will return your efforts with loyalty. If you start trying to broaden your customer base by trying the be all things to all people; you will also, in fact, be adding things that turn off your original customer base. So while you may have a produst/service with something that each customer profile likes, you also end up with something each group doen't like. I think the T-bird is a good example of this. And I'm sure each of is knows of at least one restaurant. For example: I'm not sure I want to see a Prius mini-van. I believe I would rather see them introduce a new model and leave the Prius to satisfy it's current customer base and enthusiests.
Only my opinion.

 

While I'll have to see it in person, from the photos I like it much better than my current 2006. One thing I see that is great is the fact they have broken out the climate control into a separate, discrete area with their own hard buttons and display. No more having to navigate through the MFD to get the the basic (manual) climate controls. :clap2:

 

A couple of observations on the new interior..

Immediate 1st impression is I don't like the interior and the main reason is that centre console and lower MFD, with the gear shift slap in the middle of it. Ugly.

Mind you, that's the 1st knee jerk reaction. When you think of what you have now with a Prius, just think how much YOU have had to adapt to a totally new way of driving...
A gear shift on the dash - how stupid is that, it should be in the middle of the front seats or on the steering wheel.... it'll never catch on (but it did and it's fun, to us !).
Then there's the MFD, off to the right (LHD) or left (RHD) and definitely not in your driving immediate line of sight. This could be dangerous and cause accidents - but it didn't. We adapted our driving style to make good use of it and glance left or right to observe a whole host of data available from it.
And then there's the speedo and tachometer - are they crazy selling a high tech car without a tacho ? Who thought it was a good idea to put the speed in LED decimals right in front of the drivers line of sight and SOOOO far away from the dash that no-one will ever use it right, right? Wrong ! We adapted and it all comes naturally and a tacho on a CVT transmission is about as useful or desirable as a fart in a spacesuit. We don't need it.

The whole point of this is that when you first see something a little weird (or "normal" such as a centre mounted gear shift) the first impression is it is crazy, it's ugly, it'll never work, it'll never catch on and if they think I'm going to buy one they can think again, etc etc. What makes us the design experts ? All we are is a bunch of very happy motorists who have adapted to a different vehicle, albeit a very special one. But none of us had a hand in deciding where to put the gear shift for a worldwide market. Can you imagine the ridicule and criticism the designer must have initially suffered when he came up with this idea to stick a gera shift on the dash ? You're CRAZY ! Not so, oh wise owl. Aren't you glad he got his way ?

And now another designer has gone a bit retro with this ? We all seem to think they're crazy (again), but it won't stop them evolving this car they way they see it going.

But here's the kicker in all this - the photo was a sneak peek at a car that didn't ask to be photo'd at all. No-one said that this is what you're going to get, it may just be bluff and bull at the moment. Who knows, maybe Toyota are thinking along the lines of why they need a small mechanical shifter at all, why not a button you press and Drive is selected, press another for reverse etc. Crazy ? Who knows, but it would surely work too, I mean check how much you have adapted to driving the Prius, that you press a button to put the car in Park - how weird and silly is that ????

 

Because first and foremost Toyota is running a business. If somehow they competely traded one set of owners for a larger set ( 70% larger ) thus generating more sales and more profits then they would have made a great business decision. The sole purpose of being in business is to increase sales/profits. They won't lose the entire population of current owners. I'm positive the entire population of Prius owners won't defect. Defect to what?

However I am certain that the leakage from the current pool of owners will be very very modest. In driving a Prius now it would be next to impossible to go back to some mediocre middle of the road alternative? The new one may not appeal to some but with 10+% better FE than our current ones how would I seriously consider going back to a 32 mpg Camry instead of the new 55 mpg Gen3? There's no way.

Now if they don't gain additional buyers and a wider acceptance and then lose some current owners to defections then the decision was a bad one. That's also part of being in business. However remaining in place is sure death. The don't-fix-it-if-it-ain't-broke theorem of business is an invitation to be trampled to death.

 

i like how we're all complaining about knee problems when no one has even sat in one of these yet. and also hating something so vehemently, talk about emotional distress