Confirmed: Toyota only reinforced one side of the Prius (photos inside)

As some of you may know, Toyota reinforced the front end of the Prius for the 2014 and 2015 MY (model year). The 2010-2013 Priuses (I believe the cutoff date is November, 2013, MY 2014) lack this reinforcement. I could not confirm exactly what Toyota did but when I was shopping for a new car, I had to have one (why not) that scored at least acceptable.

I understand that aside from a complete redesign (which is impossible midcycle), the next best thing is to add "band-aids" to try to manage crash energy and deflect or slow the rate of deceleration as much as possible before reaching the passenger compartment.

So today I was doing my HID retrofit (I'll make another post on that in a bit) and I had the headlights out. Immediately I saw what Toyota did. They added an extremely dense and thick triangular shaped reinforcement along the outside of the drivers side frame rail. This design looks like it was made to deflect the oncoming vehicle (or quite possibly the IIHS's rigid barrier) and/or to engage the front structure so it is *not* bypassed in the event of a crash involving a small percentage of the vehicle's front end.

I am not aware of other reinforcements Toyota has done.

I accept this and it helped the Prius achieve an acceptable score. All body parts remained unharmed but the reinforcement(s) looks like it helped just enough so the passenger compartment isn't completely torn apart. Though there's still more intrusion than I'd like to see (hence the acceptable structure score) Overall the 2014+ prius achieves a top safety pick *plus* award.

Now here's the shocker (maybe not so shocking)

Toyota only reinforced the driver's side to beat the IIHS small offset test since the IIHS tests the driver's side. The IIHS has said in the past they suspect manufacturers are doing this but did not name any. The proof is here. No such reinforcement exists on the passenger side. So if you get in a small angle crash on the passenger side and you bypass the front structure, your passenger is in for a world of hurt.

It seems the brace may be a bolt on. I wonder if one can simply by another one (or two of them) if you are a 2010-2013 owner and install them. Just for peace of mind.

Anyway here are some photographs I took of my car as well as to confirm my suspicions, looked at pics of crashed priuses. It seems my suspicions are correct. Only 2014/2015 models have this triangular structure on the drivers side. 2010-2013 don't have anything.


2015 Prius (my Prius) passenger side. Nada. =(

Here's the driver's side...



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Here's as 2010 I pulled. Every 2010-2013 looks identical. No reinforcement.


A 2015... note the triangular reinforcement designed to engage the crash structure/frame rails.



The Prius is still a really safe car. I'm just disappointed in Toyota for only reinforcing the driver's side--the side the IIHS tests. In the future, the IIHS says they will randomly test driver or passenger's side to make sure manufacturers arent trying to cut costs and only make the driver's side safe.

If you watch the video, you see what I said seems to be correct. Watch the Prius bounce off of the barrier. I don't want to know what happens if you bypass the triangle. Eeps. Honda does a much better job at this with their "ACE" body structure. full engagement all the way out to the corners. The next Prius hopefully will be fully designed.

 

Prius driving simulator haha. Gran Turismo (the video game)??

I would be interested in installing on the passenger side but looks like Toyota would have to reengineer and retest and relocate the windshield washer tank and some other parts (perhaps AC lines) to install a brace there. The whole car has to be redesigned with this in mind. Seems this is why Toyota took the cheap way out and reinforced only the drivers side as there wasn't much on that side to relocate except one wire harness which they simply clipped 3 inches higher on the 2014+ model.

 

Not necessarily. In fact, in many cases, the opposite is true. You have to understand materials and science to understand. A lot of "laymen" seem to think safety=weight.

In recent generations, many (I'll try to use basic terms) car manufacturers have made cars stronger by utilizing high strength and ultra high strength (exotic) steels. This means certain parts can be stronger, retaining the same weight (sometimes even lighter) and reducing redundant materials elsewhere resulting in overall lower vehicle weight. It's not only about the amount of materials or mass of materials, but how those materials are layered (or structured) and how they manage crash energy.

Ideally, you want the front of the car (the part of a car usually involved in a crash) to have its energy-absorbing structures (frame rails and front bumper (bumper, not support) to engage the front of another vehicle's structure. This means extending its structure engagement points out to the side and down low. While looking at my Prius, I see Toyota does have a lower engagement point on the Prius which is good for bumper-mismatch type crashes. Kudos on that. I can talk about this for hours as it's a subject I've obsessed about for over 15 years, but trust me weight does not have to be a penalty when increasing safety. And if it is, it's a penalty I'm willing to accept. The next Prius should average 55mpg and its structure will (obviously) be designed from the ground up to ACE this test and will have its entire body structure more rigid, higher strength steels, etc. So more MPG and safer... are you still going to complain? I sure won't.

Of course absolute safety doesn't exist, but I'd rather have a car with maximum safety designed into it than not.