I can't believe the lack of thought by the Toyota product engineer, design review, verification and QA. The hybrid system battery (?) connector has a laterally sliding latch lock. When moving a spare tire in and out of the tire well, and or positioning the plastic tray or the hatch back floor support, the latch can be bumped very easily. I checked with a finger tip, just a few ounces of forces is required to release the latch lock. Then the car's dashboard display will give an idiot message "hybrid system" with no additional info. The user's manual, all +400 pages does not warn the user of this issue. Other people commented that possible reasons why a car may not start after having a flat tire, is the need to reset the TPMS. No. Also resetting the starting system, and or the reset for a weak key fob battery. All wrong. Its the lack of foresight by Toyota. The connector lock mechanism should have been a squeeze to release not simple sliding latch. I looked all over the place to find others who would have encountered this problem, but none. I suspect Toyota is covering up this design flaw. My daughter and I were stuck on the side of the freeway in the rain for several hours due the car no being able to be started after replacing a flat and accidentally touching the connector. The local dealer knew exactly what was wrong with out having to run diagnostics, so I am sure I am not the first person to have suffered to the lack of engineering due diligence on the part of Toyota. Super Pissed.
I've pulled the spare out maybe 1/2 dozen times, checking the pressure or whatever, and it didn't seem like there was any risk; it's not really in the way or protruding. I haven't really thought about it though.
Actually it is purposely designed to be ridiculously easy to disconnect and harder to reconnect. Also a Panasonic design I believe, not Toyota. That is the safety disconnect that removes the HV pack from the car. It is the thing a first responder is supposed to yank on to kill power to a car because hybrids and EVs are potentially scary to them with all their high voltage DC. If the frame gets energized or if they need to saw through something, they don't want to possibly send 200V+ through their equipment or themselves. In normal situations it works as expected. Even with hundreds of thousands of miles of shock and vibration from the road, it stays connected. But given a quick jostle by a human and it is disconnected. It is a good thing to know about, but it is acting as designed. It is not a flaw, it is a feature. All HEVs/PHEVs and BEVs have a similar switch. In the Leaf for example it is in the centre console so not a problem for a spare tire, but someone the backseat could open the cover and open the kill-switch draining all power from the car at any time.
