2019 Prius Midcycle Refresh Details

I don't care if the battery is NiMH, L-Ion or nuclear fission as long as it does the job.
ISTR they changed the white centre console to black in 2017, here in the UK or made it optional.

 

Wonder if I can put the new sun visors with the extensions on a 2017?

 

Clean Fleet Report - report much the same as we've already read - apart from:

"... Instead of the lithium-ion battery used in other Priuses, it uses a small nickel-metal-hydride battery that Toyota says is specifically designed to perform well in cold weather." [my underlining]

[ LA Auto Show: 2019 Toyota Prius AWD Debuts - Clean Fleet Report ]

 

I don't think you know what cold weather is

 

But I do wonder if the rest of the world will continue with NiNH batteries?

 

Toyota Prius has the worst infotainment system and GPS of any car I have seen. Even Hundai has much better systems and Nissan and Honda are incredibly superior. Entune is a bad joke.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

this is what is bothering me. they are already selling us li-on in the u.s. and maybe canada too?

if that's the case, where are they expecting to sell so many all wheel drive vehicles, siberia?

yep, it may go on the chopping block, since i'm no longer allowed to rake, and my wife can't handle it all.
purchased october 2005, 27,000 miles, perfect condition, all original. nothing but oil and filters. tires are like brand new, though some will say unsafe at 13 years old.

 

you up already?

 

Extended cab?

Sounds like a real peach.

One of the reasons we moved from VA was the wife or sick of raking leaves too.

Life’s better in California .

Good luck with the eventual sale.

 

Disneyland opens at 7 am this morning .

Then we hit the road home later this afternoon .

 

sweet! i hope to be in disney world in 49 days, and counting...

 

Enjoy the weather and beating the cabin fever .

 

Sounds a lot like my 2WD 2000 Tundra pickup with about 55K miles & original 18 year old tires.

 

The marketing strategy has definitely changed since the early versions of the Prius. What was great in the old days is that whenever you came across someone who thought the Prius was some type of quirky econobox, you could point out the high tech features that at the time were otherwise only available in Lexus and other high end luxury cars. My 2006 Gen 2 is towards the bottom of trim levels and yet it came with three-door smart key and a 7 inch 800x480 MFD with backup camera. Everyone that I showed the backup camera to had never seen one before. The only other person that I knew who had a backup camera drove an Escalade, and from what I remember their screen was really tiny compared to mine. And smart key was nearly unheard of back then except in luxury cars.

I think you could see the start of the change when Gen 3 was introduced. You now had to get the second highest trim level to get three-door smart key. And you had to purchase the navigation package to get a backup camera and high resolution display.

Now that isn't to say that there weren't some very high tech features available in the Gen 3. Considering this was almost ten years ago there were some impressive features such as DRCC, LKA (reportedly worked better than current LDA w/steering assist), PCS, IPA, and later models had HUD. However these features were only available in the top of the line trim level, and even then only if you purchased the Advanced Technology Package for nearly $5,000, making for a very expensive car and so only a small percentage of Prius owners actually had the high tech features.

Now with Gen 4 it seems they aren't even trying to be anything other than a decent mid-level car. Which is fine, the world changes, hybrids are not the sci-fi wonder that they were nearly twenty years ago, and crossovers are no longer the latest thing, they are THE thing, and so Toyota now puts into Prius what they need to but it's clear that marketing strategies are moving in other directions.

 

i think toyota has seen the writing on the wall. make them as cheaply as possible, and sell them at the lowest possible discount.

 

Don't you have safety inspections in your states?
The tires on the Sable were showing age related cracking at the 7 to 8 year point, and it failed inspection because of it.

The AWD was equipped with NiMH since the beginning in Japan.
The Prius One and Two have NiMH in the US.
On their hybrids, Toyota is only using Li-ion to cut weight by using a smaller total capacity, and are not going after the performance improvements it could give. As is, it will give a slight boost, but from the perspective of most people, there wouldn't be any obvious difference between the two.

From what I have heard, the Toyotas getting CarPlay are brand new designs, not refreshes.

In the beginning, those high tech features were used as an enticement for buyers to try the Prius, and to hide the cost of the hybrid system in their profit margins. The hybrid cost has been steadily dropping since then, and many of those features are becoming the norm in the Prius car segment. I got the trim(3?) above base for my 2005 in order to get VSC. That was standard on the 2013 Sonic. The Prius also got SKS, which wasn't available on the base consumer trim at the time.

 

Inspected every year here in Virginia.

 

No inspections in beautiful California (other than an every so often smog check).

 

I've had 2 fail spectacularly. First was a '77 VW Microbus, bought in 1984, it had 5 new tyres incl a new spare. After 6 mths, I rotated all 5 - and within weeks, the one which had been the spare went off with a bang, by the time I'd stopped (from 110) it was shredded. There was enough of the sidewall left for the tyre place to tell me that it was 8 yrs old.

Almost the same with my 1994 VOLVO 940 - dirt road, the tyre which had been the spare blew and sidewall badly damaged. That was in 2004, again the tyre which had been the spare for most of it's life, barely worn so I put it on. Not realising it too was 10 yrs old.

I read recently that the DONUT spares are becoming an issue - they NEVER get put on the car apart from very short trips, so not rotated. Soome quite old cars still have the original spare - which fails when used - just when it's needed.