Summary of proposed improvements for future versions of Prius

A fixed cruise control lever (one that does not vanish every time you turn the wheel) and then gets broken when you get out of the car and catch your knee on it.

 

Anything we add here should be to make the Prius a better automobile.

There seems to be a problem keeping the 12 Volt battery charged when left idle for a time. I have not experienced this, but others have. Why ????? Lets design it so that when the computer senses that the 12 V battery is low on power that it has the HV battery recharge it,as it now does normally....if the HV battery should get low...... lets have the ICE start and recharge the HV battery .......all on it's own. The parts are in place to accomplish this.....lets use them. !!!

Make this a consumers choice !!!!!

 

You can do this now. Just leave the car on in ready mode, in park, all the time. The batteries will charge.

 

CivicQc, thanks so much for compiling this list. Here's one or two to add to the steering section of main list -

1) Increase the steering wheel tilt range a little bit, especially in downward direction and a little more telescope to the driver.

why? I always have to lift up a couple to four pumps on height adjuster since the wheel doesn't tilt down enough to me, but then my head gets closer to roof than I'd like. If I lean back an extra notch to compensate, then the steering wheel is tough to reach cause it needs more telescope range. I can get it to work, but it could be a little bit better.

 

Make the driver's door armrest just about the same height as the center console armrest.

why? I sit in quite a few new cars. Pretty much everyone of them has door and center console armrests fairly even height. gen3 Prius' is noticeably low. Yes, I took a yarkstick, level and small ruler to determine the door armrest is indeed about 3/4" lower than center console.

 

A few adjustments in the rear seating should barely adapt for a more expansive space.

 

need larger aux. battery, the stock one is really small

 

Rear wheel drive or like on the Lexus RX450h front wheel drive + elektric motor that powers the rear wheels ?

 

engine RPM-meter for the ICE , the new Lexus CT200h has this feature and displays RPM when the car is in Sports-mode .

 

Lightweight Lithium batteries , the option to choose between normal frontseats and lightweight bucket seats .

Alloy spare wheel .

 

replace all halogen lamps by LED-lighting .

ICE with elektronic activated supercharger in power mode

Factory option off LPG-instalation

 

How about a little gizmo that keeps the rear camera lens clean. Now accomplished by a rather large gizmo...me.

 

Better scratchresistant and touchfriendly Interior
Power folding mirrors ( you get them in Japan so why not in the US and Europe ? )
An Indicator light or even better a notice in the MFD so one can see if the windshield washfluid container is empty or not ( every car at this price range has a warning so why not a Prius ? )
Illumination of the rearview mirror controlls ( why allmost everthing is illuminated besides those beats me ! )
More colorfull displays
I hope you´ll get the HUD in the 2012 Facelift !

Greetings from Germany

 

I would really like to see a Prius with AWD or a variant of the 4WD-i system that's used on the Highlander.

My wife and I currently own a BMW 330i (which is great fun and gets driven mainly on the highway) and a Subaru Outback sedan (which is the jack-of-all-trades AWD car that's great for normal errands, bad weather, and roads too rough for the BMW). We'd like to replace the Outback with a hybrid or diesel vehicle, but the closest vehicle currently on the market is the Escape Hybrid, which doesn't offer enough of a mileage improvement to justify its cost over an Outback of a similar model year. The TDIs are also appealing, except they don't have AWD (unless you step up to the Touareg TDI, which gets worse fuel economy than our Outback).

Hence, I'm hoping to see an AWD Prius (or a Subaru product with Toyota's hybrid system) introduced in the next few years.