Toyota Updating Prius On-Screen Display Interface

I have no problem with the screens as they are, though I don't have NAV. But there is one bit of information not provided at all that I'd really like: an ammeter to show how much current is flowing in or out of the battery.

 

I'd like to see the Energy and Consumption screens combined onto a single screen. I'd also like to see the climate control screen a little more clear. I find it difficult to see if the AC is on or off when not in Auto AC mode.

 

I think it would be nice to have a tiny version of the Energy screen embedded in the Consupmtion Screen. Perhaps at the top, between the "Consumption" title and the "MPG" heading. It would just have the coloured arrows (because once you know the Energy screen, you know what the arrows mean).

And the instantaneous MPG on the right would have the actual number (as seen on the Energy screen) superimposed on it. Then. you'd only ever need to use the Energy screen when you're showing off how it all works.

 

At least for me, there is already an overhead view on NAV showing building outlines if you zoom in close enough, and if you're in a detailed area.

 

I don't believe anything "a dealer" says about what Toyota is going to do in the future. IMO Toyota is not going to tell "a dealer" what it has planned for the future. There may be a notice sent out to all dealers or regional offices, in which case Dianne would probably let us know. But much more likely will be a big public announcement with lots of fanfare. We can speculate, we can dream, we can wish, we can tell Toyota what we want; but we ain't gonna know nothing until there's an official announcement.

 

The only additions I'd really like are:

- Show interior temperature
- 2 or 3 "climate presets" for pre-chosen temperature/vent settings

That's about all the additional info I need.

N.

 

Could this just be about the number of people who have posted with broken/nonfunctional screens. That sort of "upgrade" seems much more likely something that a dealer would be told.

 

Audio

I'd like to see the ability to manually attach station identifiers to radio stations.

 

I'd love to see more on the energy consumption screen - lifetime MPG, this current tankful's MPG, and this trip's MPG.


I just got my Prius 6 weeks ago, and am loving it. My wife ABSOLUTELY loves the fact that I'm a MUCH less aggressive driver, since I'm trying my best to squeeze the best MPG out of the car as I can.

 

Display Improvements

Toyota have spent serious money on the display in the Prius and could have gone much further with it;

- I don't understand why I can't change from AM to FM on the same screen that I select stations. Why have the row of audio control buttons (AM/FM/CD/TA) etc

- There is missing trip calculation stuff like distance to empty, estimated time of arrival and as someone else suggested, trip fuel consumption. I don't know why the trip meters are on the headup display

Anyhow, maybe someone at Toyota reads this...

 

First of all, let me mention that I believe there's an optimum speed for best mileage depending on the conditions under which you’re driving. My experience shows that for best mileage, slower isn’t always better. Your car's momentum, for instance, is certainly a factor.

There's enough sensor data and computing power in this car to tell you whether you should speed up or slow down to improve your mileage. I can envision a bow shaped curve on the monitor (picture a broken rubber band, stretched like a string across the bottom of the monitor, then a finger pushing it up in the middle .. the curve on the graph would take on the shape of a hill or maybe a gausian profile). The vertical axis of this graph would display MPG, the horizontal axis would display SPEED. Both axes could be graduated from, for instance, 0 to 100 (or, better yet, variable).

The top of the rise in the middle would represent the optimum speed for best mpg for your current driving condition (level road driving, up hill, down hill, headwind, tailwind, etc.). A bright cursor on this line would disply the speed at which you're currently driving. The cursor may be to the right of the peak which says you’re driving too fast for best MPG, or it may be to the left indicating that you should speed up a little for best mileage. Of course, if the cursor is exactly at the tip of that peak, you can do no better mileage wise. Either way, the closer to the peak the cursor would move, the better the gas mileage you'd be getting.

Now THAT, from my perspective, would be the perfect monitor display to use as a tool for obtaining optimum Prius gas mileage.

 

Too distracting. And possibly dangerous in heavy traffic, where it's more important to stay with the flow of traffic than to disrupt it by seeking the "best" mileage. And it would encourage speeding in situations where the speed limit is below the optimal speed for best mpg.

This idea I like!

Also, the bar graphs don't have to be so huge, and, as discussed once before, the bars should represent equal distances rather than equal times, for a more intuitive "feel" as you average them by eye.

Oh, and an engine temperature read-out, so you'd know when the car is ready to enter Phase III (or is it IV?) so it can go electric. My commute, on city streets, never lets me go fast enough to make the transition, and the first stop light is way beyond the point where it could do so, so I have to actually stop somewhere for 10 seconds if I want most-efficient operation. I'd like to know when the car is ready.

 

Distance to empty would be a nice feature, but I don't think you could do ETA without the car knowing how far you're going. I'm hoping that the NAV system can provide this information.

I don't want to take any business from Coastal Dave, but an indicator to let you know you've gone from regenerative braking to mechanical braking would be useful. Also, how about a screen to let you set the volume of the feedback beeps for the onscreen buttons (including OFF).

 

Ken Cooper said (amongst other things):

"There's enough sensor data and computing power in this car to tell you whether you should speed up or slow down to improve your mileage"

Daniel responded by saying:

Too distracting. And possibly dangerous in heavy traffic, where it's more important to stay with the flow of traffic than to disrupt it by seeking the "best" mileage. And it would encourage speeding in situations where the speed limit is below the optimal speed for best mpg.

Ken Cooper responds with:

Ah, a good current Administration like response.

Really though, I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and assume that the typical Prius owner mirors the typical Prius forum visitor. I don't remember hearing from any irresponsible drivers here (let alone, stupid). If nothing else, knowing at a glance whether one's speed is above or below optimum, and to what degree, would allow more intelligent decisions while driving. Like anything else, each piece of data is just one of many bits of information a driver uses to make the best possible decisions in traffic.

Actually, a curve like this could be integrated into the mileage bar screen and be shown above the bars (kind of a shallow gaussian curve, the peak indicating optimum mpg for current driving conditions. Again, a bright cursor would travel along that line/curve showing your current speed condition relative to the optimum mpg peak. Again, the horizontal position of the cursor would indicate speed or relative speed, with the vertical position of the cursor on the curve indicating mpg or relative mpg.

 

It would surprise me if the typical Prius owner mirors the typical Prius forum visitor. Forum visitors are much more likely to be computer geeks than the general public, and therefore more likely to be interested in the technical ins and outs of the car. The only other '04 Prius owner I've ever spoken with had had her car 4 months and didn't even know that she could lock the door using the smart-lock buttons. She knew about smart entry, but thought she needed to use the fob to lock the car. She was also unaware that there are web sites devoted to exchanging information about the car. Why? Because she was not in the habit of spending time at the computer roaming the internet.

Even so, considering the number of people on this forum who say they go to extreme lengths to squeeze out every last mpg, I think it highly likely that an indication of most efficient speed would prompt a number of people to drive above or below a safe speed for the traffic flow and/or speed limits.

Toyota's not going to tell us the most efficient speed because they want us to drive at the safest speed, and those two figures are likely to be very different.

 

I agree with Daniel. The most important consideration is to drive the car in a safe manner and secondary to that, try to drive it as efficiently as possible. It would be relatively easy for Toyota to link the comsumption algorithm to the cruise control to make sure you were always driving at the optimum speed. I personally would never use that feature if it were available and I don't think most people would.

Back in the 80s some cars had indicators on the dash to tell the driver the optimum time to upshift. Why is it that these are no longer available? I would imagine that some people were involved in accidents because they were looking at the dash, waiting for the shift indicator to come on. Although they has a beneficial value, the corporate lawyers probably insisted that they be removed.

 

You'd imagine wrong. Upshift Indicators generally came on very low end cars. Cars without tachs. I think after a while, tachs just became standard equipment because it did provide a bit of a nicer "expensive" look to the gauge cluster, and they really don't cost that much. Corporate lawyers had nothing to do with this. And really, noticing a big amber upwards pointing triangle isn't quite the same as taking in the energy flow display on the prius.

That said, there are some cars that still come with those "upshift indicators". I believe the lowend Kias and perhaps Hyundais do. Perhaps the Chevy Aveo as well.

 

My point was that I don't like the idea of someone staring at their dashboard waiting for a big amber triangle when they should be paying attention to where they are going. That's bad enough, but I definitely don't want someone analysing a bell curve with intersecting lines trying to decide how fast they should be going. This might be OK for some rural road in the midwest, but we don't need this kind of driver's distraction on the highways.

In addition, anyone who doesn't think that corporate lawyers are involved in every aspect of automotive design (at least in the US) is pretty naive.

 

Not sure I understand how glancing at the relative position of a cursor on a curve would be any different than watching the instaneous gas mileage digital readout on one screen or the position of the the MPG bar on the far right side of the other.

From the logic I've been reading here, the LCD monitor should be turned off while driving to assure total non-distraction while on the highway (maybe true but still, I leave it on, and I suspect the responders here do too).

As for the shift indicator, they came along just after cars changed from 4 speed to 5 speed transmissions. It was easy to forget to shift to 5th (wasting gas), but the shift indicator coming on would act as an appreciated reminder.

And again, I don't believe that the typical Prius driver would compromise safety by disrupting the flow of traffic or driving beyond the legal speed limit simply for purposes of better fuel mileage.