Yes, with the indicators set as they were the moment Auto was disabled. When it gets hot enough to use the A/C, I use Auto mode all of the time. In the spring & fall, I just want to vent outside air in... I assume I'll get better mileage than running the A/C (as I assume Auto would do). It's just a bit annoying that the car refuses to remember the last settings.
Interesting... I leave the car's drive mode in "Eco" all of the time (on the theory that I get the best mileage there). I know that the A/C is always in "Eco" mode when the drive mode is "Eco". If I'm just using the vent, I don't think that this does anything, so I turn it off. I believe my A/C light went off when I pressed "Auto". I'm more annoyed now that the car is not remembering the last used mode.
I think, among other things Eco runs the fan at a lower speed when in Auto mode. At least that was how the indicators appeared on my gen 4 Prius.On my 2025 Camry (Gen 5) the indicators do not show fan speed when in Auto. On my Camry the AC light is also off in Auto.
Yuck, no thanks. I want to be able to request, for example, fresh air only while letting it keep control of everything else. Sure, losing partial auto loses the light ambiguity, but it's a significant reduction in functionality. Maybe I'm just used to this because it's worked the same way since Gen 2. Indicator behaviour has changed (so it's ambiguous in a different way), but the partial auto behaviour has been in use for over 20 years now.
Interesting that you say this... my 2018 Prius Prime did not work this way. I've only noticed it in the Gen 5.
The way the indicators displays what it's doing is different in the Gen 5, but the basic "partial auto" behaviour is the same in G2 and G5. I checked the G4 manual to make sure that it wasn't an odd one out, but it confirms it's the same: Presumably because the indicators always showed current state, you were misled into thinking that the G4 operates the way you say you want, and changed to full manual. The G2 to G4 had the problem you were complaining about the G5 But with the G4 you didn't know that you didn't know... You only noticed with the indicator change in G5, which actually made that less ambiguous: G2 to G4: Full auto: Auto light on, other indicators showing state Semi auto: Auto light off, other indicators showing state Full manual: Auto light off, other indicators showing state G5: Full auto: Auto light on, other indicators blank Semi auto: Auto light off, some other indicators blank, some other indicators showing something Full manual: Auto light off, all other indicators showing something. Only remaining ambiguity is on the A/C light, I think, where "light off" can mean "off" or "blank" for auto. The other settings won't be blank when manual. It seems like you are having some problem with the car remembering the settings, but I'm going to put that down to the vagaries of the "My Settings" thing. You're not using different keys are you?