Cargo Area and hatch light install.

Hi everyone.
I recently switched all of the interior lights on my 2015 v to LEDs and the cargo are lighting was still pretty bad with just that one light coming from the side down low. So I looked into some options like lights that were designed to replace the rectangular inserts in the rear hatch plastic trim, but they were around $170 and I couldn't find anyone who had installed them and the pictures they showed were from other cars. I guess there aren't that many aftermarket products for the v.
I saw the install and write-up that Native2PS did and it seems like a good way to go. I found some 2" 12 Volt RV recessed lights on amazon and they worked perfectly.

The most nerve-racking part of the whole process was deciding to cut into the $900 cost to replace headliner if I did it wrong. I drew a circle on the ceiling and a small razor blade or x-acto knife easily cuts the headliner material. Also making sure it was centered in the ceiling took me quite a while. Measure 10 times and cut once.
The next step is to remove the 4 headliner retainers near the hatch.(a trim tool easily removes them) The headliner can be puled down a few inches and a wire can be fished through the ceiling hole. 22awg wire worked nicely.

The wires can be pulled to the left and tucked behind the pillar trim. The trim removal is pretty easy, just the two bolts holding the black lower trim need removal and then the upper trim can be pulled out so you can get behind it. As for wiring, you need to decide how you want the light to function. Do you want it to be able to be turned on with the hatch door closed, or do you want it operate like the existing cargo area light that turns on and off with the door opening and closing? You can have it function anyway you want by using a microcontroller like an arduino. But I just want it to light up when the rear hatch opens. Powering it from the existing cargo light circuit seems like the way to go as It will not come on when any door other than the hatch is opened. At first I (incorrectly) thought that the light should have the negative grounded to the chassis and the red(+) connected to the cargo light circuit. But NO. the negative is the switched conductor in this circuit. I wired it that way at first and the light would never turn off.
I also wanted it to have its own switch so the easiest thing to do is get a round on/off rocker switch and just wire it up to the existing circuit. Positive to positive and negative to negative. A voltmeter is needed because the existing circuit wires are not red and black. They are IIRC green and blue, so you need to check. Round switches are easier than rectangle switches because you can just drill a hole and install the switch. You don't have to cut a correctly sized rectangle. I chose to put it here.
I also used some 22AWG JST SM 2 Pin connectors so that the switch and the light can be removed without pulling the wiring out of the car. I forgot to mention how I spliced all the wires. You can use any method you want, but I didn't have any crimp fittings or other splices on hand so I just cut and stripped all the wires and soldered them together and then used heat shrink tubing. I did not take too many pictures of the wiring because it is really simple. But here is the end result.
I went with the 4100K color LED with the black aluminum housing. Most of the car interior is black so this does not look too out of place. If it bothers me in the future I will take it out and paint it. The total cost of everything used was about $5 dollars which makes me wonder what Toyota was thinking not putting one of these in.
Here is a test with a light meter in the middle of the cargo area.
And the back lit up.
I am really happy with this mod, it has already been very useful at night and I highly recommend it. If anyone has any questions about what parts were used or about anything else, please just ask. This forum, for the most useful of all prii, seems kinda dead with very few projects showing up so it would be great to liven it up a bit. I also installed some other lights in the hatch for lighting up the ground around the rear of the car. I'll post about that next.

 

Do you have pictures? Also a link to the product? Does not seem to be available anymore.

 

I appreciate you finding these.
Toyota Prius V LED cargo lamp These look like they would work for the v as they replace the panels that cover up the brake lights. That's a nice option, but $180...
The other two look like they are for different chassis codes. ZVW30 and ZVW60. Had to use the page translator, so I may be wrong.
Thanks

 

Here's the second set of lights I installed at the same time. These are in the black plastic trim in the rear hatch. They are for spreading light around outside the rear of car in case you need to do something a little further away and the dome light is not enough.


Installing these was a bit more time consuming but still pretty straight forward. All of the hatch trim needs to be removed in order to snake the wire behind everything. The 4 headliner retainers also need to be removed to gain access to the underside of the rubber wiring harness boot. I found that removing the grommeted end flanges from the metal(on one side) and plastic clip(on the other) was the easiest way to snake the wire through. It all goes back together easily.
After that the wire can easily follow the existing wire loom to get to the terminal locations.
Again, 22AWG JST SM 2 Pin connectors were used so that all the components can be removed individually. The lights I chose are the Oznium 3W Bolt LEDs in neutral white. They are easily installed through a drilled hole.
The cargo area light circuit seems like the best option again as they will turn off when the rear hatch is closed. I chose to put the switch up high on the left interior pillar so it wont get hit by any cargo and is easy to access.
When the hatch is fully open the lights are at least 6 feet from the ground so this light reading isn't bad given the area that is lit up. It is a very usable amount of light at almost double the lux that the stock incandescent map lights send to the seats.
I haven't really had to use them yet as the new dome light puts out enough light for everything I've needed to do so far. But I can conceive of a situation in the middle of the night on a road trip where I have to unload the entire cargo area onto the ground in order to get at the spare tire.(done that before) This would have helped a lot then.
Thx,
Dan