Cheers & Jeers
(mostly my take on Prius design quirks)

Speedo: mph/kph. The pushbutton switch to change the speedometer from reading miles/hour to kilometers/hour is useful, not that I’d use it. But I’m curious: Why don’t the units displayed on the odometer also change (to kilometers)? In fact, why is that speedometer switch not part of the options in the touch-screen display panel? Alternatively, as with the odometer/trip odometer switch, have the mph/kph switch also cycle through changing the odometer readout from miles to kilometers. I understand: Some people drive at speeds measuring kph but measure distances in miles. However, some people operate in terms of kph and distances measured in kilometers. Having those options as readouts would not be excessive.

Additional fuel efficiency displays. How about mpg (or kpg) readouts for Trip A and Trip B odometer readings as well?

Tenths of miles (kilometers) in the odometer. The two trip odometers show distance traveled in tenths. The odometer does not. Now I ask ya, how much would an extra LED display cost to show tenths? Is showing tenths really a difficult software problem? Answers: Pittance; no. In New England, a region notable for its lack of road signs, it sometimes helps to give directions in terms of mileages. Mea culpa, I went on a road rally or two when I was in college. These had directions like: “R 0.4 mi after ice cream. L 6.8 mi after ‘Grass Seed.’” I still think of travel directions in those terms. MapQuest and Yahoo! Maps obviously agree; the computer-generated directions are in tenths of miles. Friends of mine tell me that digital odometers in other cars don’t show tenths either. Well, I can’t help it if other car companies are stupid; there’s no reason for Toyota to be, too. It’s a lousy idea to leave out tenths. Heck, besides helping people get to where they’re going (minimizing getting lost, minimizing wasted gas, saving that most unrenewable of resources: time), the car companies would be providing another valuable service by displaying tenths: Helping the mathematically challenged improve their abilities in rounding numbers up and down!

Reverse buzzer. When the car is in reverse, an audio alarm within the passenger compartment beeps. This is supposedly because the engine is so quiet (reverse is powered solely by the electric engine) that Toyota felt the driver needed an audio alarm warning that the car was in reverse. Cute. (I’m being sarcastic.) I mentioned this in an email to one of my clients: Gary Vasilash, editor of Automotive Design & Production. He wrote, “Imagine pulling out of a parking space in a grocery store and plowing over some otherwise conscientious individual who didn’t hear the friction of the tires on the pavement.” That’s exactly why I don’t understand why there’s no external audio alarm—a beep outside the car as it’s backing up. While you’re at it Toyota, how about an option to turn the damn internal alarm off? Stop the e-presses!!!!! Go here for John’s “User Guide 2004+,” which has explanations, helpful hints, and the steps to turn off the “reverse beep.” Easy steps. Takes two minutes, max. (Thank you for telling me about this, Greg H.)

Temperature switch. How about a rotary temperature switch just like the audio volume control? Touch screen technology is certainly “gee whiz!” impressive, but up here in New Hampshire, during the winter, finger poking one degree at a time is slow going, what with the vagaries of ambient temperatures and the difference in passenger-compartment temperature from a cold start to the time you’re finally comfortable. Here’s the situation: You start the car and, using the touch screen (or the remote “TEMP” switch on the steering wheel), you step from 70ºF (21ºC) to 80ºF (27ºC) until the passenger compartment is comfy. Then you step the temperature back down from 80ºF (27ºC) to 70ºF (21ºC). Life is short. A rotary dial (an analog switch) would be faster and more efficient. By the way, I really like having the remote temperature control on the steering wheel; however, I’m betting that switch will be one of the first to break in the car.

“Max cold.” You use the “TEMP” switch to set the temperature in the passenger compartment (using the touch screen or the remote switch on the steering wheel). When the “automatic [climate] control switch” is off, the “TEMP” display shows “MAX COLD” (<65ºF, 18ºC) or “MAX HOT” (>85ºF, 30ºC) when you exceed the temperature range of the “TEMP” switch. What does that mean? Does that mean climate control is in what used to be called “fan mode”? That is, the air (“recirculated” or “outside”) is not being cooled or heated by the car’s A/C or heater units? I’ll probably have a better understanding of this when the hot, humid days of August come here. I can just see it now: The temperature outside is 93ºF (34ºC), the humidity is 75%, the car is baking inside, and the “TEMP” display shows “MAX COLD.” Actually, I won’t see that. I’ll have A/C on!

The key. In this age of miniaturization (if it still is), why do I have to carry a block of plastic measuring 2.375” x 1.5” x 0.5” (6.03 cm x 3.81 cm x 1.27 cm)? The Prius key is both bulky and substantially heavier than a conventional key. Unlike some people I’ve known in the past, my ego isn’t based on how many keys I carry with me at all times. I’ve done my damnedest to get rid of keys. Yes, I know; the Prius key is a remote for locking and unlocking doors, and activating the alarm. I’d prefer the key being much smaller. How about 2.375” x 0.5” x 0.5” (6.03 cm x 1.27 cm x 1.27 cm), at worse?

The “[fuel] consumption” screen. This display defies comprehension at first, second, and third glance. Not the bar graph of “current momentary fuel consumption” showing mpg on the right; I’m talking about the bar chart to the left that shows two variables. Here’s a helpful hint (thank you for pointing this out to me, Greg H.) The convention in the Cartesian coordinate system is to have t (=time) increase along the X-axis to the right. To display the “past,” time increases to the left. The further away from the origin (t=0), the further back in time being displayed.

The “energy monitor” screen. This is a nifty screen. It shows what the gas and electric engines are doing (powering, generating electricity, or both). This is a minor “nit,” and it shows up only because “I r an enginere” (or trained as one): Do the bars (or bands) in the battery symbol indicate a particular amount of energy? For instance, one bar of used capacity equals, say, one of those car symbols in the “consumption” screen (each car being another 50 watt-hours regenerated)? Just curious.

Displaying “energy monitor” and “[fuel] consumption” screens. It takes about two to four weeks to get over the Wow/Gee-Whiz factor regarding the display/touch screen smack dab in the middle of the dashboard. At that point, you really don’t need the display on all the time. It’s a distraction. So, you set “Display” to OFF. However, each time you want to glance at “energy monitor” and “consumption,” you have to press one mechanical switch (“Info”) and then one touch screen icon (“Trip Info”). Why? With the other screens—“Climate,” “Audio,” “Display”—you need only press the mechanical switch dedicated to that screen. These two screens, “energy monitor” and “consumption,” are probably the most gee-whiz displays of all. They’re also informative. So why are they buried? They should be readily accessible, at “one’s fingertips,” needing only a single button to depress.

“Tools|Options”... for the car. The Toyota Prius 2004 has four 32-bit computers. That’s a lotta compute power. Hold that thought. Look at some of the more popular software programs that run on your personal computer (oops, now called “desktop computers” because too many faceless corporations have co-opted a lot of the personal control you’ve had over your computer). In particular, look at the configuration/customization windows of those programs. (You’ll usually find them under Tools|Options, Edit|Preferences, Edit|Options; you get the idea.) It’d be nice if the Prius had a similar approach to customization/configuration for displaying information—from the display console to the instrument panel—as well as for setting defaults (such as temp and volume).

Outside temperature display. I wouldn’t mind having the outside temperature displayed continuously on the instrument cluster (or having the option to have that). It’d probably be more informative than the “low temperature indicator light.” (That light stays on when the outside temperature is less than 37ºF [+3ºC].)

Ashtray. Nope, I don’t smoke, but the concept of a small drawer that one can easily reach, easily push in and out, and easily slide out of the car to empty is still a good idea for small bits of trash (used snot rags, peach pits and apple cores, wrappers of all sorts, etc.). The two cup holders at the front of the armrest almost suffice. Let’s ignore the fact that no standard, even non-standard, travel mug I have fits the cup holders. The problem is that I can’t remove these substitute “ash trays.” (I like that drawer at the bottom of the armrest. Fold-up maps fit nicely in there. So would small bits of trash, if that drawer was easily accessible while driving.)

The lower back window. There are two windows in the trunk hood. The main (bigger) one is above the “spoiler.” A smaller window strip is just below the spoiler. I gather that smaller window is to increase the area one can see behind the car (either when looking through the rear-view mirror or when facing backwards when driving in reverse). One problem: That small window gets mighty dirty—and quickly. (At least that’s been my experience around here this first winter I’ve had the car.)

Dashboard finish. Something about that dashboard finish/covering that’s hard to keep clean. In fact, the black shows up dirt, dust, and pollen mighty fine. Ugh.

Towing eyelet. Towing the Prius is not a simple matter of having the tow truck hook a chain to the chassis (front or back). No, you first have to install something on the Prius to hitch to. To do that, find the heavy-duty eyebolt among the tools in the trunk for changing a tire. Very heavy-duty eyebolt. Now go to the front of the car. Pop out the punch-out in the front fender. Through that, screw the eyebolt into the chassis. There’s only one eyebolt, it only gets screwed to the front of the car, and it’s off-center quite a bit. Is this really the best design for a towing hitch? I find it hard to believe that the aerodynamics of this car would be severely affected by built-in towing eyelets (front and rear). FYI: The coefficient of drag for the Prius is the best one can get in a car: 0.26.

CD player. No pause button for the CD player? Surprised the heck out of me—until two-plus months later. On a whim, I pressed the “PWR” button for the radio/CD player while a CD was playing. Aha... “PWR” doubles as “pause”! You can turn off the CD player and when you turn it back on, it starts playing the CD where it left off. Very strange. Undocumented, too.

Jump starting. Wonderfully, you can always poke along in the hybrid when you run out of fuel. If you run out of gas, the electric engine can push you along until the batteries die. Figure two miles, tops, on a flat road that’s perpendicular to earth’s gravitational pull. Maybe more if you’re going down hill. (See also my “outta gas” page.) If the electric engine or storage battery go gaflooey, you have the gas engine to push you. Alas, it seems you can’t jump start other cars with a Prius. This saddens the Good Samaritan in me.

The repair manual. $350 or so. Ouch! I’ll wait until Chilton’s comes out with its Prius repair manual.