A few answers to your questions...

instead of comparing a built in NAV with portable options, what about other built in options on different vehicles?

i have had no real experience with either, so interested in hearing from someone who does. granted wont change anything in my situation, but i still be willing to listen

 

Re: HUD for US market

Thanks Prius Team, lots of good info... Why was the HUD not offered in the US market... That is somethig would pay extra for...

Can a geek/nerd add this later ???? like I did XM Radio to my04.

 

I've used BMW, Mercedes, VW, and Opel factory navigation systems (all in vehicles I've rented in Europe). Of all of these I liked the Mercedes system the best and the Opel the least. The Mercedes system had a nice interface, the only bad part was instead of touch a screen to select letters you had to use buttons to move a mouse to the right letter. It was a bit slow.

None of these factory systems worked was well as the Garmin units I have rented from Hertz or the $150 Garmin Nuvi 200 I personally own.

That is my problem with factory navigation systems. They cost way too much, $1500 to $2000 but don't work any better than my portable Garmin that cost 10x less. The only benefit is that they are built into the dash so you don't have to mess with suction mounts and power cord. That comes back as a double edge sword though. Since it is built into the vehicle you can't use a factory GPS in another car, motorcycle, or walking tour.

I'll keep my Garmin.

 

Touché

 

Yep a built-in Nav does not even compare in terms of features/cost/usefulness/utility with a portable unit (I use a Garmin 660). I also use the beanbag with it which means I don't mess with suction cups either! It works perfectly, it has features that the Toyota NAV doesn't approach, I can use it for walking tours, in other cars, in rental cars, to listen to music or audiobooks, it's BT compatible...it has everything and at a fraction of the price of the totally overpriced Toyota NAV system. Hands-down there's no comparison in which the Toyota system is 'better.' The only difference is one is built in and the other is not. For a factor of at least 10x the price having it built-in is not worth it..esp. when the features in the Garmin are 10 times better.

 

Understood about the US market stuff, but as we tend to get a
much broader internationalized view of things via the internet,
the natural tendency is to see one of the cool things that the Japan
market gets, like [say] the second-gen EV switch or even the
Estima hybrid minivan, and ask "why not here?" And those
questions are often pretty poignant, where it would be nice if
Toyota paid a little more attention. Not *everybody* in the US
is too stupid to handle correct use of such features, and it
often feels a bit condescending when Toyota takes it upon themselves
to say "sorry, you don't get this one".
.
_H*

 

Can you tell us the parts order number and can we replace them ourself?

 

Per GCC, it is 3.267.

 

Thank you!
But, I can read it 3.267.

Ken@Japan

 

Oops, typo. Fixed.

 

I got around the messy wiring by adding an active cradle which is hard wired in. I don't have any rings on my windscreen, a solid mount which never falls off, no wires across the car and the GPS is closer to my line of sight than the MFD, and within easier reach.
Using click-On mounts I haven't drilled any holes in the dash either.
I use a TomTom GPS.

 

Will the backup camera in the 2010 have distance marks on it like Nissan's? So that you can guage how far you are from something? Nissan has 10ft, 7ft and 3 ft markers with color coding. That is very handy!

 

Hi Prius Team,

Just one small question about this. How exactly does this cruising range work? Is there an explicit cruise range number in miles/km, or is it that each arrow represents a certain distance? What distance exactly for each arrow?

In the current generation model we were educated to believe the cruising range was impossible to determine given the fact that the ICE only represented a certain amount of total power going to the wheels. Thus the cruising range could vary immensely depending on how much electric power we could/would use, and Toyota had decided not to calculate the cruising range because of this large error margin.

How exactly was this problem solved? How is this cruising range calculated now? Does it only count on instant MPG? That would mean a great variance of cruising range over a few seconds in certain conditions...

I'm puzzled. Can you please elucidate us about this?

Many thanks for your great work here on PC!

 

Assuming the new 2010 IPA will work as the European 2006 IPA, the lines are always there from the moment you put in R, no matter if IPA is activated or not.

You have 3 modes of showing lines:
- show the current trajectory line according to drive wheel position;
- show the maximum curvature lines (left and right) possible i.e. curve limits
- show only safe distance line from bumper

 

Cruising range, or distance to empty, is always impossible to know for certain for any car. The car doesn't know the conditions ahead - you may sit in a traffic snarl for three hours. All any car computer can do is take the current or average mileage and multiply it against the remaining fuel. In the case of the Prius, the battery makes a very small contribution to range, so it is safe to ignore it.

Tom

 

I most respectfully disagree on that.

Of course no certainty can be taken on any cruising range estimate. The thing is that battery power DOES influence largely the Prius consumption.

Hell, saying that the electric part has no influence on the cruising range is denying the hybrid technology in the first place!

The contribution of ICE power in the locomotion power varies from zero to almost 90% (my estimate) many times per minute, so how can any estimate be roughly and minimally accurate?

The way I see it, it has to average at least the last 5 minutes, if not more. But I would really like to know how Toyota dealt with this. I'm sure they found a very nice algorithm...