My personal comparison of 2014 PiP to 2017 Prime

This is an area where I will periodically post my comparisons of the 2014 Prius Plug in Advanced without Advanced Technology Option and 2017 Prius Prime Advanced.

 

This will be a long post. It is my personal thoughts and comparison of the 2014 PiP Advanced without the AT package that I enjoyed for 3 years to my new 2017 Prius Prime Advanced. These are all my personal opinions and musings and others may have different opinions based on perspective. I thought I would put this review and comparison out there for anyone who was interested. I just finished my first tank of fuel and so thought I would make a report now as it has been 4 weeks.

Prior to my first Prius I drove a 2005 RAV4 for 150,000 miles and 10 years and enjoyed it very much. When looking at the RAV4 I also considered a Prius Hybrid briefly as I have always admired it’s efficiencies. In the end the RAV4 won out primarily because of the way I liked to drive, inefficient as it was. When the RAV4 was nearing the end of life I began to look at the Prius again and the PiP in particular. I have always been fascinated with the idea of an all-electric vehicle I could afford to drive. I looked at the all EV RAV4 and Leaf offerings at the time, but got range anxiety because I travel ~ 1,600 miles round trip once or twice a year to visit my parents. I also take several local trips that were beyond the range of either of these on a single battery charge at optimum conditions. I decided on the 2014 PiP Advanced but test drove one to make certain I could deal with the swooping console, the instrumentation that was center based rather than in front of the steering wheel and the rear hatchback bar occluding my rear view in the mirror. I also wanted to make sure it was not underpowered as I commute 54 miles primarily on I-78 between PA and NJ and wanted to make sure I could get out of the way if required. I was satisfied on all counts but still decided to lease the PiP just in case I had second thoughts or could not easily adjust to the driving difference. The Prius, for me, was a step change in the way I was driving. I had driven normally about 10-15 MPH over the speed limit based on traffic, the average of which is about 10 MPH over on the stretch of I-78 I commute on. I had no intentions of becoming a hyper miler pushing the limits of the MPG in the Prius, but I was going to attempt to drive the speed limit always. This means I am now an obstacle to 97% of drivers on my commute. I would stay in the right lane of three lanes and only pass when something slower than my Prius was ahead. I tell all my friends that my driving life falls into two categories now, pre Prius when I drove to achieve MPH and post when I drive to achieve MPG. The transition was a success and now I am a plug in hybrid convert for life.

Now that I have set the stage on to the main discussion. These comparisons are in no particular order and I offer some context framed in my perspective. My biggest disappointment with the PiP were all the myriad exceptions to pure EV driving. Even in the optimum temperature and humidity conditions if you were not extremely light on the pedal it would engage the ICE. This was one of the main reasons I had made the switch to the PiP for the 10 miles of all EV range. I was aware of the limitations prior to purchase, but still thought I could drive quite a bit in EV to make up for the highway where I could not go 62 MPH to maintain EV as the speed limit was 65. I quickly got over this though when I realized that when I was able to drive all 10 miles EV I only got 10 miles. If I let the Prius blend the EV I regularly got an additional 25-30 MPG over the course of my 27.5 mile drive into work. With the Prime almost all the exceptions to EV are gone. For the first few tanks I am driving it in EV and Eco mode. It almost never disengages EV mode, except occasionally when going over a mountain when the temperatures are near freezing. This only happened two times in twenty trips. I normally get about 25-26 miles of EV. I got 1076 miles on 10.576 gallons of gasoline or 101.7 MPG with the first tank of gas. I am very pleased with these numbers and especially so since this is normally the least optimum season and the average temp was probably 34 degrees F. I will need to see if there were any gains from the new climate prep based on departure time, but I only figured out this was not working due to my doors not being locked after the first half a tank was consumed. I also always drive when on the highway using DRCC, EV and ECO mode and let the computer sort out the performance only very rarely overriding and assisting. The PiP’s lifetime was 56.7 MPG, but I do not want to compare until I have a year’s worth of data for the Prime.

I have always been function way over form, but the Prius styling has always appealed to me. Maybe I appreciated the very low Cd numbers. While most still think the original styling of the PiP was unusual to say the least I always liked it. What I did not particularly like was that from the outside a PiP and a normal hybrid Prius were difficult to tell apart. The main distinguishing differences were the wheels, the plug in fuel port, and initially a different set of color selections. The Prime went over the top in this category and I really do appreciate the differences in styling now. Although I liked the original PiP’s styling, I love the Primes very different styling. I love the front end look of the Mirai styling. I like the shutters that close when the temps are low. I really like the rear taillight and how it traces all the way across the spoiler. The LED headlights and fog lights are both well styled and add efficiency. I also like the carbon fiber hatch with the wave in the glass. The Prime really seems like a different model vehicle now, though it retains most of the same structure as the Prius Hybrid. I also like the standard alloy wheels and the cover better than the $800 optional alloy wheels which were on the Prime I test drove. I find the handling of the Prime over the PiP to be much tighter and controlled thus far. I sense much less lean in curves and it seems to hug the road better. Once last styling difference, I never liked the Satellite Antenna on the PiP, I am happy to know that this is now the normal shark fin configured rear antennae in the vehicle color.

The interior is also a lot different in the Prime. I liked the swooping console in the PiP and I miss it sometimes as I find the shifter a bit further to reach for as I am 6’ and like the seat pretty far back to give me leg room. I am glad they kept the joystick shifter as I got a lot of comments on that alone. Overall I find the interior of the Prime’s fit and finish much superior to the PiP’s. It also has added insulation so there is less road noise that I hear when I am talking with passengers. I was initially hesitant to get the moonstone interior as I thought it might provide too much reflection in the bright sunlight. When I test drove a Prime it had this interior and it was a sunny day. I saw no more reflection in the front windshield nor on the 11” display. I ultimately changed my mind and got the moonstone interior and I am very pleased with it. There are also the small details, like the blue trim around all the air vents that really elevates the interior towards what I would expect in a luxury vehicle.

The instrumentation on the PiP was revolutionary at the time. I quickly became used to the center based instrument clusters and MFDs. The amount of information was plentiful and could become distracting if you let it. The HUD was a nice feature that I took advantage of for speed and occasionally the turn by turn directions, see my next point to see why the NAV was not used very often. The Prime again takes this to a whole new level. Color instrumentation and the MFD is awesome. One thing I had not realized during my test drive is that if you are using the MFD and leave it on the energy display, it will override this display if any “Event” occurs. For example, if you engage DRCC it will pop up initially and tell you the range in bars. If you raise or lower the set point speed of DRCC it will again override for a few seconds and show the new set point. The same goes for all the other TSS features, like Lane Departure, or when another object comes within 3 feet an alert pops up. There are many of these and I really like the intelligent just in time information feedback. The instrumentation section could be a post of its own, suffice it to say that I have found the feedback and instrumentation much superior in the Prime.

The Entune system was a bit disappointing in the PiP. Especially in the NAV and traffic departments. I supplemented this with a 10” Samsung Galaxy Tab and a flexible mount attached to the passenger seat left bolt. This placed the tablet just above the shifter on the console. I ran Google maps with traffic, Torque (more about this later) and would play my music collection through Bluetooth. In the beginning, I would run both google maps and the Entune NAV system so that I could take advantage of the turn by turn on the HUD. In the end this became distracting. I had two NAV systems giving me the same directions 80% of the time, but the other 20% it was like an electronic Schizophrenia as google was saying turn this way and Entune turn the other. It was almost funny in a painful way, like having two type A backseat drivers disagreeing about each turn. In the end I went with google maps alone as it’s traffic and alternate route suggestions were far superior to the Entune NAV with traffic. Encouraging news for the Prime. I have now run parallel tests for one month with google silenced and relying on the Entune NAV with traffic and thus far, although google is still the winner overall, the Entune NAV with traffic is acceptable. I did really like the JBL sound system in both the PiP and the Prime.

I do not use a lot of the standard Entune apps, but I really like the Entune advanced apps that are enabled through TSS subscription. There are two main differences I have noticed in these between the PiP and the Prime. Charge management now let’s you schedule climate prep at the departure time and it works the same as pressing the A/C on the remote, but only if you lock the car doors. The next is not really a difference in Entune, but the PiP and the Prime’s consideration of the state of charge when using the remote climate application. The PiP would sometimes refuse to start the A/C remotely when I was leaving work. This was primarily due to all the EV being spent and the reaming 18-20% of battery being used in Hybrid mode. The Prime has never had a problem with the remote climate, so long as the doors are locked. I have really enjoyed this feature the last month as it has been relatively cold @ 34 average and it is very nice now that the Prime has a heat pump to be able to start the climate on max heat and time my arrival at my car for ~10 minutes later when the A/C stops to get into a toasty car to drive home. I am sure I will appreciate the cooling in the summer also.

There was one big advantage to the PiP that the Prime does not have for me. This was that the Torque PIDs had time to be discovered and added to a nice set that could be downloaded so that the SoC %, MG1 RPM, MG2 RPM, individual battery cell current and voltage, and many other custom readings could be logged and displayed right away. I am now in a new frontier with the Prime and struggling to simply get the SoC % PID, which is the most critical for my review of the logs. I have been a big fan of Torque since the last couple of years with the RAV4. I use it not only for diagnostic purposes, but also to monitor certain PIDs real-time and to log many others for “research” purposes. For instance, I can review any trip and look at the SoC % versus Acceleration or Elevation change or outside temperature or humidity, etc. It was quite informative on the battery performance overall. With my PiP I was surprised to see just how temperature and/or humidity changes had a direct affect upon the battery chemistry in empirical terms. That is quite interesting to me. I am trying to find these values for the Prime as they are not in the same locations as for the 2017 Prius hybrids. That is on another thread if interested in progress details.

Next is simply a list of new features, in no particular order, on the Prime that either did not exist on the PiP Advanced or were included in the Advanced Technology package that I opted not to add on last time.

• Heat Pump – Yeah, finally for us cold weather drivers an all EV solution for heat beyond seat heaters. Thank you Toyota for listening!!!
• Automatic High Beam Dimmer – This works well most times with oncoming traffic, but I find that sometimes stopped cross traffic get peripheral blinded.
• DRCC – I cannot overstate how much I love this addition. In my normal commute with the Prius it seems I am always accelerating when others are decelerating which causes a YoYo effect and is most annoying when someone is going the same speed as myself. DRCC will match their speed and allow me to pass when safe to do so. I also love that it is Full range DRCC and will actually stop the car. The day after I purchased my Prius on the way into work it was one of those days I hated where there were a number of accidents that were causing congestion and some stop and go traffic. The few times the Prime actually stopped all I had to do to re-engage DRCC was to press the gas pedal or resume the DRCC. Very Nice!
• Lane departure with auto correction – I was uncertain about this one, but I like it now. I do not drive with my hands off the wheel, but I have tested on clear roads and it does indeed do a very good job of detecting even faint lines and keeping you inside them. It will even begin to correct prematurely a bit, I think, before it beeps at you.
• Blind Spot sensor and mirror alerts – To be honest I still check the sides and probably always will. This is just a nice double check for me as a few times I have been caught off guard when me and another driver both decided to merge into the center lane from the left and right at the same time.
• Intelligent Drive Coach – I have seen it at work, but can’t quite understand why it tells me to accelerate at times. I will need some more soak time with this one, perhaps it has not learned all my driving patterns yet. Though my NAV system has a lot of green leaves on it!
• Rain Sensing Windshield Wipers – This seemed a bit like overkill initially, but I have quickly gotten used to it. Two minor flaws I have noticed, it will often kick on for fog when it is not needed. I need to see if there is a sensitivity setting. I also notice that it comes on when at the car wash which makes sense, but is not what you want. It is also a bit of a trick to enable and I think there should be a display icon to let you know when it is enabled as I will sometimes go to the delayed wipers and skip auto and then when I go back I may over shoot again and turn auto off.
• Backup Camera - The PiP had a backup camera, but no lines for clearance guide. Prime adds these in color, nice touch!
• Intelligent Clearance Sonar – This is my “Raise Shields” moment from Star Trek. I have not figured out how to keep it displayed in the MFD, but it is very cool. It shows three levels of distance on all sides of the Prius Prime. If anything enters those zones the Prime immediately shows which has the intrusion in the MFD and makes an audible ping that increases in frequency the closer you get until within approximately 1 foot it goes continuous. I actually had this system tell me to brake in big red letters one day last week. I was not that close, but I suppose I was going faster than it thought I should have when the person in front of me stopped at a stop sign and I rolled up behind them a bit too close, but still about 2 feet away. I assume this would work at highway speeds, but I am not going to try and verify that.
• Intelligent Parking assist – I have not had an opportunity to try this out. I am curious about how it performs. I do not have many opportunities to parallel park and I like to back into parking spaces at work and the garage at home myself, it is just autonomous for me at this point. I will try this out and report back later.
• Steering wheel heater – Ok, this also seems ridiculous, but now on bitterly cold days I no longer need to drive with gloves on like I used to in the PiP. First world problems.
• QI wireless charging – I have used this with my IPhone 7 plus and it works very well. I do not have a case and plug in the QI receiver tag to the power port of the IPhone on those few occasions I need to top it off on a drive.
• Rear Cross Traffic Alert – I back into parking places to avoid this type of scenario, so I have not, nor do I plan to use this feature. It would be useful if I ever find myself in this situation though.
• Heated Mirrors – We have had a light winter thus far, I will need to report back hopefully not till next winter, on this. I can recall a few times in the PiP that freezing rain / sleet and snow caused a frozen mess on my outside mirrors.
• Smart Charging Cable lock – I like this option, though I do not get the opportunity to use it practically as I only currently charge at home. I am trying to convince my employer to add L1 or L2 chargers though.
• Color HUD – I mentioned this earlier, but will list it again as it has some additions over the PiP offering. It shows the local speed limit if it is available when you first turn onto a road. It also shows a small form of the energy monitor vertically.
• The 11.6 inch multimedia display – I did not discuss this at length above, but I find it very responsive and intuitive. I like the split screen. I currently show NAV map at the top and Energy flow diagram at the bottom. I like that It has the most used items on the side of the screen and that it reserves an area at the bottom of the screen for climate and audio settings to be seen in a small way always.
• I also like the fact that the OBDII plug is now vertical in the Prime rather than at some odd angle as in the PiP that made it difficult to plug in and view the activity lights.

I also have already noticed some things that would be nice minor improvements.

• Would be nice if DRCC had custom default distance settings. I normally always drive with this set to one unit away. This setting works well in most every situation I have encountered thus far. DRCC defaults to 3 units away and I always have to change right after setting the speed.
• A way to always show the intelligent clearance system so I can pretend I am piloting the Enterprise on some distant mission in space rather than driving to or from work.
• If it does not already exist then some way to adjust the sensitivity of the rain sensor to try and exclude fog. This was confirmed as existing by TideLand and verified both in the manual and in practice on a drizzly day.
• Add a display icon for the rain sensing wiper function. Confirmed in the manual that when going from off position to Auto for rain sensing wipers the wipers swipe once. I was able to verify today as it was raining.
• Add daily miles to the Entune app ECO display. I know they are there, but only show for those in the top 100 ECO score currently, please allow me to see mine even though I will never achieve top 100. If real estate is required then feel free to remove the ECO score from each trip or make it optional which is shown. I plan to make this request on the app review page. Also please add remote view of current ODO reading.
• If not already included add option to turn on heated mirrors in Entune app remote climate similar to rear and front defrosting on/off sliders which already exists. I plan to make this request on the app review page. This was confirmed by RightRudder and verified as already existing when the defrosting option is selected in the remote climate Entune app.

That is all for my first report. I will make another after 6 months or so and maybe I will find other features I was unaware of on the Prime and follow up on those I had not really used yet.

 

2014 Prius Prime Error redacted, now reads 2014 PiP Advanced.

 

In the last 10 years of driving, I have only once had more than four people in any vehicle I have owned. I have one wife and two kids so it works out nice on trips. The addition of a rear built-in console is a plus for the kids also. Previously it was a fold down. This gives a more permanent division of space, so I expect not to hear from my daughter or son on long trips that the other is taking "their" space in the back. I may still hear "Stop looking at me." from one or the other.

As far as the hatch space I normally pick up a lot of groceries and filled the hatch space by area faster than by volume as I do not stack grocery bags. Even when we go on vacation the luggage will normally all fit below the Tonneau cover. If I need more area for groceries I normally use the back seats and floor boards as extra area.

I bought a new EGO lawn mower a couple of years ago and it fit in the previous PiP with the seats down. I estimate that I could fit the same size box in the Prime.

 

Thanks, I took a closer look this morning and there is no intermittent delay setting, only auto. I had thought the ring was for the always on intermittent delay wiper setting. I will verify the next time it rains or is foggy and if it works will edit my original post to reflect my new understanding.

 

I have only seen my own two times once in the day and once at night. I asked my wife to get in and hold the brake down so I could admire for a couple of minutes. What I suppose I meant was to say is that it looks so cool that other people will admire it. I am hoping that Prime sales take off in the area enough that I will get a chance to see someone else's. Maybe RightRudder.

 

Again this is my opinion, but when I looked at those millions of spokes I immediately thought of my shoulders and imagined the pain from cleaning each one of them when road grime and salt attached itself. I like to invest in low maintenance.

 

Yes, my salesman was Brandon. I enjoyed working with him. At the time I was trying to decide between the Blue Magnetism and the Hypersonic Red. He mentioned there was a Red one on order that would be arriving for pickup, but we missed getting a look at yours. I ended up seeing one at Muller Toyota and decided to go with the Blue. It was a close decision.

 

I just verified this is the case. I turned on the defroster option in remote climate and then touched with the back of my hand after a few minutes and both side mirrors were heated. I will update my OP.

 

I had located the section in the Prime's manual that discussed this for the rain sensing wipers. I had missed it previously. I also confirmed it today as it was raining and drizzling off and on today. I crossed this off my review. Thanks.

 

Today I also noticed another item I am missing from the 2014 PiP on the 2017 Prime. Maybe I overlooked it, but I cannot find a setting to show the trip MPG when powering off the vehicle at your trip destination. I used this as a gauge of how well I did on a particular leg of a trip. I get more information from the drive performance on my acceleration, braking, constant speed, and coaching tips . I also get the ECO score as before, but no MPG. If there is some setting or settings I need to enable to have this show at each trip stop that would be helpful.