Is anyone else dissapointed in the MFD?

Hi Gokhan,

Allot of people want to have seperate controls. But look what the design result is! Simply overcrowded, no blind operation landmarks, insufficient leg room for the average american male, not anywhere close enough for me (and I am 5'10"). If you want to drive in a car that is more like a commuter aircraft seat, your welcome too it.

Why do you think aircraft have gone to glass cockpits? For the same reason. Button/display overload. The world is going in the other direction, than this change, and this interior gives the new Prius a scizophrenic design.

 

This thread is moving too fast for me to keep up, but I'll butt in anyways at the risk of repeating somebody. Center mounted dash displays are dumb. I seem to remember the Taurus or some other rental car standby had one. I'm sure Toyota has lots of ergonomic engineers and marketing guys with lots of focus group data, but its still dumb. The speedometer and whatever else is deemed important should be at least heads-down if not heads-up. Unless you're racing on a track in the southern hemisphere and always turning right. (left side drive, of course, the way god intended it).

But getting back to an earlier theme, toyota has said the prius is a tech driven car. Sometimes that means you have some awkward and not well thought out "features". The price you pay for being an earlier adopter. If you want a car with safe "features" which appeal to the masses, buy a camry. I woud have thought that an evolution of the MFD would be something with voice assist or multi-touch. Not a button festooned center console and iconized dash. But apparently the marketing department got the upper hand over the engineers. Perhaps I'll wait for the plug-in secus (pri-us -> sec-us, get it?) with the really cool stuff.

 

Toyota has at least one other car that has the spedo in the center, one of the smaller ones, perhaps a Scion. The sales guy indicated something about Toyota research about ease of seeing. Hogwash.

 

+1. The 'gee-whiz' factor of the MFD animation wore off for me in about a week. Seems like Toyota foresaw this, too, by putting the redundent controls on the steering wheel, which is what I use almost exclusively to control HVAC and the radio. It's extremely rare that I ever use the MFD, even going so far as instead using the radio buttons to scan or tune the radio. Even the instantaneous fuel mileage read-out doesn't mean a lot to me since I do those calculations manually due to increased accuracy.

Likewise, although it's nice feature and I get more use out of the rear-view camera than the MFD, it's just not enough for it to be a 'must-have'.

 

I sort of wondered that (I did see the other pictures). That's why I asked at the end of my last post (under the pic).

I'm holding back judgement. The center console looks hollow where your knees would go. It's like a big bridge.

I'm 6'4" and I fit into my current Prius just fine with the seat all the way back. I can't imagine they ended up taking away any legroom.

 

The new seats are much better than the old ones. I'm 6' 3" and I fit just fine without bumping my knees. The height adjustment and the telescoping steering wheel make all the difference.

 

Additionally, the new seats have tilt adjustment, lumbar adjustment and 3 or 4 inches further rearward travel, and the steering wheel still has tilt/height adjustment. All in all, the seats and driving position should be much more comfortable to many more people.

 

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I think its fine. I cant stand the buried menus. Want to fade the music to the front or back? Change the vent direction? IMO, it was much easier to turn a stacked knob on a stereo or turn a dial especially when you are driving.

I hardly look at it when I am driving anyways. Monochrome, color, touch screen, I just drive the car.

BTW 2005 with nearly 100k and keeping it until the wheels fall off.

 

Agreed, and I'm 6'4". Overall the ergonomics are improved.

 

Not having the advantage of a live sit-in, I'll give the display/console ergonomics a B+ grade, based upon photos. Someone at the show commented that the interior is much nicer than able to be conveyed in photographs.

Kudos to Toyota for trying to improve upon many features, and add some significant new features. However, I'm surprised they made no attempt to improve upon the rear view mirror. Aptera has long been developing their car to use solely an LCD monitor/camera setup for the center rear view. Their initial concept was to replace all 3 mirrors with LCDs, but have retracted and gone with standard side mirrors and the center rear view LCD.


I just saw pictures of the Subaru Legacy Concept with it's panorama-format rear view LCD/camera system. It replaces the windshield-mounted mirror in its exact location. Did any of the PriusChat folks lay eyes on this feature at the show and care to comment? Not certain, but it looks from the photo that it may have some useful features, such as pan left/right, up/down and zoom controls. That's neat! I think Toyota could have successfully done this with the Prius, perhaps mount the LCD where the Gen 2 MFD is currently located, which would remove the blind spot caused by a windshield-mounted object.

 

That would be the only thing saving tall drivers from the arch and is a very welcome improvement.

That brings a question. In the pictures, is the driver's seat all the way back? I've been comparing the front of the seat relative to the arch/arm rest and how that relates to where MY arm is sitting in my chair if there were an arch/arm rest at the same location. If so, the cup holders will be even more useless than I thought for shorter people. If the seat is a few inches forward of 'max back' the holders would be a little more usable for ME than I thought. Although, having one buried in the armrest and the other backed up to a rising arch with a flip up cover on the front side still looks like anything other than a fairly tall bottle will be difficult to pick up.

 

Dandy, but I don't see that any of the 18 buttons and 2 knobs look like a fade control. And if there were one, how would you know where it is set? Sure you can decide where it sounds good to YOU but my older daughter is very noise sensitive and I use the visual to move the sound away from her.

And like 'traditional' cars, you have no idea what station each preset radio button is set to. I LIKE being able to see the assignments for the current 'mode'. EASILY obtained by pressing 1 button.

And among the 10 buttons on the console for climate control NONE let you directly set the vent position other than (apparently) the new 'fresh air through' button. That, by the way is a nice adder, though *I* would still prefer ALL those buttons to be on a 'soft' MFD screen. Additionally, they took away the steering wheel buttons for Auto climate control, front defrost, rear defrost. NOT GOOD.

I ASSUME the Mode button steps through the vent positions. And to know which one you are on, you must look WAY off the road at a SMALL icon. You find that EASIER than pressing the Climate button on the MFD surround and then the ONE position you desire? Yeah, you and I think a LOT differently. Hopefully, like the 'tracer' display on the HUD, they will show the vent setting as well so you DON'T have to look down (other than to find the mode button) to see when to let go. The mode button, by the way is just a little confusing. I ASSUME the Mode button on the steering wheel is for the audio (ie. switching from AM to FM to CD, etc. Hopefully it still also functions as radio power on/off) and is NOT the same as the Mode button under the climate controls which (again, I ASSUME) is used to set the vent position.

 

Okay, now I am confused. Early information suggested that bluetooth phone integration was part of the NAV package but from the Priority Package Options Dr. Fusco posted here:

http://priuschat.com/forums/2010-toyota-prius/57425-2010-options.html

it lists all Priority Packages Option Packages as including Bluetooth® Hands-Free Phone Capability but no Nav unit.

Anyone have details on that?

 

new toyota audio units have bluetooth from the box, not packaged with navi anymore... but i believe when full options come out, it will be upgrade radio package with bluetooth...

 

Yes. Along with the Eco and Power Mode buttons.

 

Yes. No.

Yes, I know for sure, I saw it.

No, the speedometer does not disappear. The photos above do not show it, but the MPH/KPH display remains on, and the cluster display is superimposed (actually at a different depth) on either side. The instantaneous MPG and fuel guage displays are momentarily obscured.

 

When we played with real unit, the cluster display appears to float in space in front of the other screen. The different depth level makes it easy to pick out on the display.

For me a bigger question is whether it will be better than all of the buttons. The individual buttons take awhile to get used to, but once you do, you can control a lot of things with a simple touch of your finger.

I forgot to check, but it appears that the defrost button has moved to the center stack. I like having defrost button on the steering wheel because it gets used a lot where I live. It is possible that the touch buttons will do it, but I didn't see it when I looked.

Tom

 

See how the Touch Tracer works in video. It is like Star Trek holographic image. That activates with the iPod-like touch control circles by your two thumbs. Very cool!

 

That video is cool. I can see how the Touch Tracer seemingly floats in mid air.

So when you press a steering wheel button,the MPH readout doesn't disappear, but the Fuel Gauge and Instant MPG disappear, right?

But my much bigger question is... did they get rid of the mirror???

Is the VFD still mounted pointing up and viewed as a reflection in an angled mirror like in the 2004-2009? Or have they got it in a direct-view arrangement now?