I've driving my Gen III for a week now and very happy. But a question (cause I'm a worrier): Some where in the 600 pages owner's manual I read that you must never ever shift into R or press Park while moving. Now that's obvious, but what surprises me about the shifter knob is how easy it is to move it--especially into reverse. I've always owned a manual so this is all new for me anyway, but on other automatic cars shifting requires some special effort and attention--pulling, pushing, some knob attention. Is it really so easy to just knock a Prius knob into reverse? With so many onboard computers, doesn't something prevent this? I doubt that I would hit the parking button by accident, but I can imagine all sorts of dumb moves that might cause me to hit the shifter knob by accident: fussing with my sunglasses in the overhead storage pocket and having them fall on the knob, missing the mark as I go to adjust the the airflow mode, a front seat passenger doing who knows what--not to mention that after 30 years driving a stick I might reach for the knob out of force of habit in an emergency and try to put it in first. So what happens if I knock the knob? - very curious....
At highway speed, it instantly goes into Neutral with a double-beep warning. Should there be any runaway acceleration, this is the fastest way to Neutral, without the one second delay imposed when intentionally trying to go into N.
Your suspicions are correct, it will go into neutral if you accidentally select R or P while driving. The only exception is if you are just rolling at about 1 or 2 MPH then it may go into P with a loud "clunk" so I always stop completely before selecting P. You can select N while driving if you hold the shifter in the N position for about 1 second while moving, you can try this safely. When it goes to N the engine goes to idle and everything still works fine, you can then reselect D and off you go. EDIT: As fuzzy1 points out R or P is a quicker way to select N in an emergency while driving. BTW no one has ever had a legitimate case of "stuck throttle" with a Prius as far as we know.
To add to fuzzy's... if you hit the Park button it will also go into Neutral with a double beep. Unless your are about 5 mph or less, than it might slam into Park.
What overhead sunglass compartment? I have had my Prius for 4 days and have not discovered this feature yet
Keep looking you'll find it, about 6 or 8 inches behind the rear view mirror. Be careful though it might scratch your lenses.
If you have the solar sunroof, you do not have a sunglasses compartment, so far as I know, Toyota used the space for solar electronics.
Another shift feature is if you are backing up and select "D" before stopping, the car WILL go into "D". That is, no gears will be shifted ("R" is not a "gear", it's MG2 being driven "backwards"), MG2 will be driven forward, slowing the car to a stop then driving it forwards. The engine will also be used if you apply enough throttle. While in "R" the engine may run, but not to drive the car, rather to warm up the cat. and perhaps generate electricity, though I'm unsure if it will actually charge the battery or use the energy to drive MG2. You will eventually notice the car is rather "gutless" in "R". If you try to reverse in deep mud or snow or up a steep hill you might have trouble. The drive current to MG2 is limited to protect the battery, so you don't always get the full torque you might expect.
