Can/will Toyota upgrade the radar brains in feature.

To my knowledge, Toyota only upgrades the firmware of some Prius ECUs to address performance (software bugs), safety, or longevity issues.

 

We are stuck with what we have.

 

I think we are stuck with what we have purchased.

 

No - what you're wanting isn't available on 2017 PRIUS, it seems that 2018 hasn't changed either.

There is a possibility - albeit slight - that a mid-cycle update might change it, but I suspect that, at the Price-Point of PRIUS, it's not going to happen this soon.

You need a more expensive car, and even then, they could be listed as extra-co$t options.

 

Currently Tesla is the only manufacturer that puts new hardware into old vehicles either for free or with a paid update. No other manufacturer is doing that. You want new features, buy a new car.

 

This would require actual hardware upgrades, not merely simple software updates.

For a guide to what Toyota will provide for this, look back at what resources Toyota made available to upgrade older Prius generations to get the better MPG of newer generations.

So far, I have seen only a single upgrade path -- replace the entire vehicle with a new one.

 

toyota has a fairly vanilla upgrade system, they call it trade in and trade up. good for them, expensive for you.

 

For truly autonomous/semi-autonomous driving they'll be more hardware involved like Lidar (or advanced equivalent) and other sensors, plus alot more processing power required. Even Tesla is saying that more processing power is still needed to process the data from the existing sensor systems, so no we won't be seeing this any time soon, particularly in a base priced vehicle.

 

Yes but this is also why all the unnamed leader of luxury electric vehicles may or may not have powerful secondary processors just sitting there completely unused. They put the expensive hardware in upfront so that it can be enabled via a software update.

 

True. There isn't an autonomous car on the road in 2017 - other than experimental ones, which I suspect, being hand-built, could cost many, many times the cost of a humble PRIUS.

True autonomy will require

1) substantial improvements to our infrastructure (roads, lane widths can be narrowed, signage, traffic lights etc) and;

2) cars which will talk to each other - which will probably require vastly improved Wireless/Cellphone communication than we have now. You don't want a drop out or black-spot just as your autonomous car is negotiating a traffic jam - where 1000s of vehicles are using up the bandwidth in the local area trying to talk to each other:


As @2k1Toaster said, for PRIUS (or Corolla or Camry or even BMW 5 series) to get to that stage will require a massive redesign of systems which don't exist on any cars at present. And a completely different processor.

Enjoy your DRCC and LDA, BSM, IPA etc for the next decade while you wait for a true autonomous car to be released.

 

ATM the toys on the G4 Prius are novelties and if you read the manual there are many scenarios of "may not operate under x conditions" so basically I treat them as such. If you want a self driving car, I suspect it will be probably 5 years or so before the manufacturers can guarantee the auto driving systems will work under a minimum number of sufficient conditions to be able to sell them to the public. These cars will basically be an AI robot on wheels, nothing like current vehicles, with very different hardware and software.

 

I would be happy if they just put the owners manual in the car so you could search it on the display. That way it would be there when you need it.

 

Mine is kept in the car, but do I ever refer to it there......?

 

I think he meant electronically

 

For referencing, I'd propose that paper is easier than electronic.

 

And neither one should be used while driving.
I find the electronic one easier to search, though.

 

True - but not in the car - on the laptop I've got USA and EURO Manuals, in the car is a PAPER Aussie Manual.

 

I'd prefer it if they made everything more intuitive so you didn't need a manual.
But at least the Prius manual seems to have had some english proof reading input into it, unlike a lot of Chinese to English translated manuals for other stuff.

 

But can a Geordie understand it, I wonder?