Dual climate control

Yes, but I guess that it is only on European models

 

None in the USA unfortunately. I always wondered if you got a module from europe and installed it, if it would work. But of course then I would need to know Celsius LOL!

 

Yeah, Toyota perceive the US as believers of not allowing one's wife as having a sufficiently lofty status as to allow them to change settings on things, especially on a complicated piece of machinery like a vehicle. That's best left to kitchen appliances.

Toyota know very accurately that elsewhere, husbands get absolutely no say in any such matters, we're only allowed to operate vehicles at all when one's wife decides to nominate the husband as a driver. Really, the dual control is not for the passenger's benefit, but the driver's, so he can remain comfortable and hence reduce the risk of accidents that may cause inconvenience to the passenger.

 

Not sure to what extent you are trying to be humorous but I think you have been watching too many 1950's U.S. sitcoms if you still have that stereotype. As in most countries gender equality in the U.S. has greatly improved in the past few decades. But progress needs to continue because gender inequality still exists in all countries, some more than others. Not sure why you would portray Japan more favorably in this regard since according to the World Economic Forum, Japan is below average in gender equality, ranking 114 out of 144 countries. The U.S. and most of Western Europe are ranked above average. But again progress needs to continue in all countries.

 

OK OK, so I was (I thought obviously) being facetious. I didn't explicitly mention Japan... by elsewhere I actually meant EU, UK, as the models in those locales have dual climate control.

I apologise if my attempt at humour epically failed, or if anyone took offense.

 

I assumed Japan from "Toyota perceives the U.S." and "Toyota knows very accurately" although maybe you meant the Toyota organization in the U.S. Dual-climate control is still pretty much a luxury car feature in the U.S., it's been around for a long time but hasn't been all that popular here for some reason.

I had a funny experience with dual climate control last year when I rented a car in Los Angeles. As I was leaving the airport it was somewhat warm so I turned on the AC, and it started blasting cold air at full force right into my face, it wasn't set on max or anything, so I turned up the temperature a few degrees and it then started blasting hot air at me at full force. Any attempts to adjust the temperature caused it to either blast cold air or hot air. I was also trying to navigate and the alternating blasts of artic air and hot furnace blasts were quite distracting so I wound up turning it off and dealing with it later. Turns out it was dual climate (which I didn't realize) and the passenger side was set to some extreme, I don't remember which direction, and for some reason this caused the driver's side to go crazy. Since I was by myself I just switched from dual to single control and everything was fine.

 

On some cars dual setting are not completely separate, one side can only be set within a few degrees of the other.
E.g. If I the driver sets theirs to say 22 deg C and the passenger is at 19 deg C, if the difference allowed is say 3 deg C and the're currently at that, then if the driver ups his to 24 deg C then the passenger side will go up to 21 deg C. I may be wrong but ISTR the Gen 3 and the Prius+ (V) were like that.
The Gen 4 is the first one I've had that seems to be totally separate, i.e. I can set mine to "HI" (max heat) and the passenger side to "LO" at the same time. How the Climate Control thermostat can cope with that or maintain those settings I don't know ?

 

I would guess that internally it still works similar to the previous version they just aren't displaying it. There is only so much temperature differential possible, not only due to the obvious fact that the driver and passenger are sitting next to each other, but also because they are sharing the same AC compressor and the same heater core, so all the system can do is control the airflow to each side. Probably some systems can get pretty elaborate how they do that but still there will be limitations.

My experience with the crazy climate control was in a Dodge. I tend to think it was defective, but I don't know because I didn't mess with it after switching it to single control.

 

You certainly are immune to humor

 

+1! It's a bit of an old thread, but I'm throwing a "Like" on @The Professor's fine example of sarcasm. I hadn't seen this thread before.

 

Thank you, Sir!