The guardian-gray 2023 Prius LE at Manhattan Beach Toyota has parking sensors. This came as a pleasant surprise to me because Toyota specs on their website do not list them. I hope all 2023 Prius LE and 2023 Prius Prime SE units come with parking sensors, as I find them very useful everyday. On a second note, Toyota has messed up their specs quite a bit this time. We still don't know which trims will come with a spare tire if any. They confused everyone, including the dealers, on whether the LE/SE had a smart key (they do but a single-door one). The window stickers are uninformative. This is the postpandemic era where no one does their job right any more. On a final note, until you actually see the vehicle and closely inspect it, you won't know which options are actually on it.
Car makers, including Toyota, were deleting features when parts were scarce. I figured $35 for parking sensors as an option meant Toyota wanted it standard, but were unsure the part supply would let them say so at the time.
Well, let's hope it will be standard. Small bumper etc. accidents are very costly and painful to fix, and these sensors help prevent them.
I think it will be, but calling it an option lets them drop the feature to keep production rolling with little blowback.
They also increase costs when you need to repair those areas. My pet peeve is the sensors are good for walls but don't often catch stupid tall curbs that chew up the bottom of the bumper and pull off the under panels. A front facing camera would help with that. Hopefully the higher ground clearance will help too.
When I placed my order I asked them to make sure that it was included, and they told me that all LEs have them and it isn't an option on their side - just something weird with the customer facing Toyota site. Hopefully they are correct.
Cameras don't help unless you have the panoramic-view monitor (PVM). Cameras are also deceptive when you are very close. There wasn't initially an option on the build site, but now, there is.
When Toyota made BSM standard on the Prius to compete with the then new Ioniq, they didn't change the features listed for the car on the site. Instead, they made a package with the features that had a $0 price.
When I built a 23 Prius LE on Toyota.com website for my zip (I'm in IA), it had front and rear parking assist with automatic braking (with 50 state emissions) as $35 msrp add-on option. I was surprised, as it does not say so on the features charts, but there it was. I was also surprised by the price. It may suggest that the sensors are installed all models, but some small change is done at port or the dealer to turn the feature on with the LE.
