2014 Prius v Model Year Spec & Price Changes

Just a Note that in a weird way it DOES have auto headlights. If you turn them on and leave them on, they turn off automatically when you get out of the v.

By default, once you turn off the car THEN open the driver's side door, they go off in 30 seconds. You can change this to 60, 90, or my favorite, 0 seconds. If you open the door with the car running or climb out a window, this does not work as well as I claim, so do not do that.

(every time I get my car back from the dealer, I have to turn on the headlights again)

 

I have the v Three, which I don't think has that feature. When I leave my lights on, the darn buzzer goes on and stays on telling me I left the lights on

 

Odd, my 2012 v Three works like that.

I wonder if it is possible to turn the feature off in customization.

 

That sounds good, and I'm not in the habit of getting in accidents at all! But is total dismissal of this crash test just your personal evaluation? Is there some site or discussion of this test you could point me to, that says the same thing? While this may not be the most common accident, I don't think it's a huge stretch to imagine driving situations where an impact similar to this could happen. And I see many cars do fine on this test (mostly smaller cars). I appreciate your input and want to believe the poor results on just this one test are of "no relevance." So far my web searches on the subject haven't turned up much.

 

Obviously its an opinion, but look at the specifics of the test. The car is smashed into a concrete barrier which obviously doesn't give. Real cars when crashing at that angle will slide off each other and jump sideways, which greatly reduces the impact and absorbs energy. In the crash test all energy is absorbed by the one car. Its an interesting test, (not without controversy), but the only way to duplicate it in the real world is to hit a similar barrier. More than a few "experts" find fault with this test for these and other reasons. But you also need to keep in mind that the people doing this test have a financial interest in seeing vehicles fail - that's what they get paid for. As cars get safer and fewer of them fail, they have to come up with new tests that are harder to pass or they lose credibility and their jobs.

 

Car are going to be divided into car designed before someone invented a test, and cars designed after. No car designed before the test has done at all well, some cars designed after do. The v was designed before the test, but was introduced after it was announced. The IIHS seems vindictive about this.

Nothing will change until the next redesign.

 

My wife and son were in her 06 Gen 2 and tboned a F-150 4x4 that pulled out in front of her while she was doing 45 mph. The car took the hit, bounced off and went down a ravine about 200 ft away. The truck engine was punched over the right side wheel upon her collision with the left front quarter panel of the truck, busting the left front wheel off the axle. Both cars totalled. Both my wife and 9 yr old son walked away after a ride in the ambulance and checked out at the hospital. Both were wearing their seat belts and the safety mechanisms of the 06 prius worked as designed. She had a bruised knee from the accident caused by there being no air bag under the steering wheel. Interestingly, there is now a air bag under the steering wheel on her 2010 Gen 3.

Toyota sold me that day by saving my family.

 

Hey RD & Jimbo,

Thanks for your responses. I don't know a thing about these tests or this group, other than what I've read in the past day. My sense is it would be quite easy to have an impact similar to this, if a car going the other direction crossed the double-yellow line (and this was at 40mph, imagine hitting an oncoming car at this angle if we're both going 45). Sure, that's not an identical situation to hitting a solid wall, but I think one can extrapolate situations that are similar, if not identical. Maybe there's a bunch of evidence I haven't seen that invalidates this test, but from what I have seen, the test points out a valid safety weakness.

Also, I'm unsure if there are reasons to think the IIHS being vindictive, as it appears they gave the Prius v a very high overall safety mark, even considering this one issue.

All that said, I'm still leaning towards buying this car. This one issue has cooled my jets a bit, but I don't think it's a dealbreaker... But if I buy it and see a car drive over the double-yellow line, I'll know it's safer to steer and hit him perfectly head on, than to have him clip just the corner of my car. But only in the v, I think if I'm driving my wife's Prius, I'll stick for the clipping.

 

Not at all similar actually. Cars bounce off each other, walls don't move. 2 cars divide the energy of the impact between them, in the test only the one car is absorbing energy. It's virtually impossible to duplicate the test result by hitting another car, unless its an Abrams tank. Does the test point to some weakness in the design of a particular car? Maybe, maybe not. But the damage to the Prius from hitting another car at that angle will be substantially less.

 

You are wrong about this crash test. The physics match a real world scenario. That may be counter intuitive to you, but it's fact nevertheless. Let me explain why.

Imagine a car going at some speed and hitting an immovable brick wall. The car crumples and comes to a stop. It has absorbed the entire force. You seemed to agree with this part in your post. Now, why did it absorb the entire force? We know the wall didn't move when the force of the car was applied to it, so in actual fact we can say it applied an equal and opposite force into the car. This is basic physics.

Now imagine you have two cars in opposite lanes coming towards each other. To keep things simple let's say they weigh the same and they're going the same speed. At impact each car crumples into the other and they come more or less to a dead stop near the impact site. How much energy did each car absorb? The same amount as if it had hit a stationary brick wall. We know this because each car was stopped, so the other car had applied an equal and opposite force. Again, basic physics.

In one case, an immovable wall provides the equal an opposite force, in another case a car provides it, but in both cases the same amount of force is required to stop your car.

You make an argument that cars "bounce off each other", but in the videos I've watched they crumple into each other as designed. Yes, they may not stop perfectly at the impact point and you'll lose some energy, but it won't be much, and hey - you gain it right back if the cars happen to be traveling a little faster than the test was conducted at.

Physics - it's the law.

 

In the UK this polycarbonate roof on the Prius plus(v) is just called a Panoramic roof.
Is the 2014 model going to have LED low beam headlights, I heard rumours that it was in the UK.