Gen III Prius - Dashboard and Center Console design.

True.

Before I got one I figured anytime the dash showed zero liters/100km (infinite mpg?) that meant the engine was off. Not so: especially at higher speeds, the engine is still at idle or slightly higher, as shown on ScanGauge.

Also, coolant temp is a handy barometer of engine warm up status, doubly necessary if you're grill blocking and/or using block heater.

 

Similar experience, except coming from 06 Honda Civic Hybrid. Loved the dash display. Of course with it's battery issues, and clunky CVT, that's the highlight of the love, but...

 

You are right, except Toyota didn't take grill blocking into account when creating instruments cluster. If it's not why showing temperatures. If everything works fine typical driver don't need that information. If something goes wrong red lamp goes on and "HYBRID SYSTEM OVERHEAT" is shown on the screen.

From our (more tech savvy) point of view - I would love to have all those Torque App / Scan Gauge information on main instruments cluster / MFD. But I don't believe we ever get it ;-)

On the other hand - I like it (in general) and I like the fact that when I connect my Nexus7 to Prius and show my friends "more data", especially in Excel files they go "woooaaaaa" :-D

 

It seems to me that your peripheral vision is far better laterally (looking towards the central display) than vertically (looking down through the steering wheel, as in a conventional car). I rented a Citroën Xsara Picasso hatchback in the UK 12 years ago and quickly acclimated to the central slit display thing then (albeit to my left instead of my right).
Everyone's different I guess.

I can fully sympathize with Toyota's leaving these gauges out. If the average driver saw what was happening in terms of engine speed and/or temperature it would drive them (and the Toyota service writer) nuts.

OT: I owned a couple of Ford Explorer platform vehicles over the years, both with full instrumentation (including oil pressure). Funny thing though... the oil pressure gauge wasn't functioning as a gauge. It had two positions: Low (meaning no pressure) or slightly above mid-gauge (meaning all was well). It was driven by an idiot light (on-off) sending unit. Why would Ford do this? To cut down on warranty anxiety. Everyone wants their oil pressure to be just above average. No one wants to see fluctuation. As far as I know this has been implemented in all Ford light trucks for the last 20 years or more.

 

I don't know if we ever get it but since on The Prius are dealing with electronic "screens" in most cases, as opposed to hard wired dials or gauges, and since with the addition of a scan gauge the information can be acquired and created, it's not so far fetched to believe in future incarnations of The Prius screens that reveal this information could simply be created.

Even though I don't use a lot of the information The Prius does give me, I have nothing against more available information. My beef with the current system is the repetition of the same information, and IMO a presentation designed more to impress in the short term...as in a Test Drive.

Give me what is available now, and build in some of the additional information that owning a Scan Gauge makes available? I think that would be possible.

 

I do not know, both my former 02 Maxima and 04 350Z had both. IIRC, my dad's 02 Rav4 has a tach. I don't recall re: temp. I'm pretty sure my mom's former 96 Camry and my former 91 Camry had them as well. All these are autos.

I think all 370Zs still have a tach and temp gauge, even in automatics. Tons of non-econobox automatics have tachs.

 

I think it would be great if Toyota offered an option to have Scanguage level information on the LCD screen. I find the information on the Scanguage invaluable but would like it to be integrated into the car

 

i must be driving the wrong cars. taurus, mercedes 300d, miata had tach and temp but was manual, minivan, oldmobile, fiat, chevy wagon...

 

^^^
Back to the Camrys, both definitely had tachs. It's just temp that I'm only 80 or 90% sure about them having it.

I recall having some Chevy Cobalt rentals before that had a fluorescent dot matrix display where you could cycle between a bunch of stuff including IIRC, water temp and oil temp. Can't recall about tach.

edit: I just found

(know nothing about this) but you can see, it's for an automatic 92-96 Camry w/tach and temp gauge.

 

i don't see the point, but i can see it in a hybrid for hypermiling. the tach at least.

 

There were many reasons I bought my 2012 Prius, the floating bridge was just one of them...

Wasn't sure how I would feel about the location of the speedometer, but in the end I have found it better like another poster commented on. Happy to hear that the pics of the Gen IV may be way off...

 

I would hazard the guess that most tach-equipped econoboxes are available as a manual. A tach doesn't seem all that useful on a CVT. Heck, I rarely even looked at the tach in any of my previous cars (all of which were manual).

A full temp gauge also doesn't seem all that useful, although I can't imagine why they didn't include a dash light showing when the engine isn't fully warmed up.

 

that's a good point. actually, engine temp in a digital display would be helpful.

 

They did. As soon as engine is fully warmed (if we can say that in hybrid) it will shut down
Mine during winter never reached temperatures higher that 70 Celsius., most of the time I was betweet 40 and 55 Celsius. First one is shut down trigger in EU Prius with heating disabled, and the second one with heating enabled.

I think that Toyota had a serious reason to drop all those indicators in hybrid. Let's imagine service people being asked why one time I have 1700 RPM, next time 2100 RPM and another 0 RPM at the same speed or acceleration.
Or another example - why when I floor it from stand still RPM doesn't go to the red line (they reach redline only at certain speed). They just avoided all the headache for the customer relations team

Have you observed water temp in your car? In winter mine can drop 10 - 15 degrees C during 3 minutes on the red light. And all those experts saying that the car is wrong because it doesn't reach 90 deg C...

 

LOL...that's why I think that cold indicator light would actually be useful. "Why is the engine running right now? Oh it's trying to generate some heat."

But I agree that exact readouts would just cause confusion. Those of us that are really interested have scanguages.

 

I still prefer a bench seat with idiot lights. Call me old fashion!

 

i suppose, in trying to design for the masses, making a complex vehicle seem simple in the cockpit is important.

 

I recall driving a family member's Pontiac Sunfire (automatic) over to Costco to get a leaking tire looked at. This car was really the nadir of automotive quality, total econobox. And found myself muttering "even this piece of junk has a tach and coolant temp gauge", LOL.

 

Coming from a 2nd gen where you have to enter a screen to do all climate controls, the 3rd gens layout is far better. I can't figure why heated seats switches are where its too hard to use them though. Getting used to the layout took some time but now, I like it. I really hated the finger touch screen to do everything in the 2nd gen. What a waste of time while eyes are off the road.