No Lane Keep Assist (LKA) or Advanced Parking Guidance System (APGS) on Plug-In Prius?

IMHO, good riddance to both. Parking is useless and LKA is fussy and more hassle than its worth. They obviously cut both in order to hit a price point. HUD seems likely to be far more useful. Anyone doubt they are going to make a profit on Prius now?

 

LKA "beeps" at you, if you are in cruise control, then it nudges the wheel left or right to try to put you back in your lane. If you remove your hands from the wheel, it doesn't work at all.

Its pretty useless, I have it, trust me.

the IPA? also useless, I can park faster and more accuratley manually.

 

LKA wouldn't work well here anyway. Snow & Ice are bad enough sensor challenges. But combine that with road bleeching caused by salting, even seeing lines in the road with human eyes is difficult.

APGS doesn't have any value for those who live in the suburbs, rarely ever encountering a situation where parallel parking is even needed. It makes it easy to imagine how a so infrequently used feature would be somewhat of a hassle remember.

I find the decision to not include either a good one for keeping price in check.
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i have to admit APGS is pretty much useless to me (cool to show off to people though), but LKA has been awesome for me for longer cruises on the highway. the effect of it is subtle but helpful. not sure if i would be ok with no LKA on the high-end prius if i was considering it but i could probably live with that.

 

The parallel parking works, but any sentient human can park a car faster and easier. The back in parking flat out doesn't work, or at least not well enough to claim it does.

The LKA is beeping all the time as it goes in and out. Even if you had perfect stripes all the time, it's still annoying, because you have to hold it just so. Too much and you are fighting it, too little and it stops working or wanders too much. I guess it kind of works indirectly, because it forces you to pay more attention and you can never just relax like you can if you just turn it off. It is more tiresome than helpful, IMHO.

 

No, it needs a huge space, more than the average driver would need. I feel like I've heard something like 6 feet in addition to the length of the car, but I don't know for sure.

Yes. I use it a lot on highway driving; I find it reduces the effort I need to steer - for example, in a long curve, the car will hold the steering constant, so I don't have to do any effort other than to correct the steering angle a bit every now and then. But it does make the steering feel a little funny, so my wife doesn't like it. But when we're together, I pretty much always usurp the driver's seat, so...