I thought I'd post this here in the vague hope that the Toyota engineers read here.

I have a 2005 Prius which I love but it does have a couple of user interface nits I'd love to see fixed one day:

• the button that dims the screen and console at night is one of the few that isn't lit up at night, and maybe the only one that absolutely should be - when the screen is too bright it's virtually impossible to find
• when you turn the front windscreen defogger, then turn it off again the A/C is left on and also needs to be turned off, pushing it on and off again should leaves everything in the same state as before (come on Toyota this one you can fix in software! send us an upgrade)

I also want to be able to hack the screen colours to evil colours of my choice from the secret menu .... what UI nits do other people feel need fixed?

Let me preface this by stating that I love my Prius. It's a truly amazing car. But... there is always room for improvement, and in case of the Prius I agree that some ergonomic aspects leave something to be desired.

I agree with Taniwha, the dimming trim wheel can be improved. One thing I noted is that the clock LEDs do not dim. At the lowest setting, all is well except the clock is glaring by comparison.
It's a common issue thought, in every car I have ever had, there was always one light source that was left out of the dimming circuit: either the clock, or the AC indicator light, or the radio controls, or.....

Turning off auto climate in any of my cars that had the feature did the same: leave all as is. For example, if you turn auto ac off after it was set to, say 76 degrees F, the compressor is off but the temp is still set to 76, resulting in pumping in hot air.
Engineers: maybe there can be two buttons or two ways to turn off auto ac: one which leaves all as is, the other that sets air flow to minimum, and temp to max cold (so that no heat is mixed into air flow).

Having said all that, I enjoy my Prius, 'Signorina Elettra'
M

I forgot another nit (or rather 2 nits) - I live in New Zealand - we use Km, not miles, why on earth does the cruise control pop up and down 1.6km/hr (aka 1Mile/hr) - sometimes I can get it at 99km/hr or 101 but not 100 - really annoying, also something I could fix (as a programmer) in about 2 minutes - roll on an open source UI :-)


I have a similar problem with the 44km/hr speed where the Prius insists on turning on the gas motor - I drive down a steep hill to work every day - the silly car insists on warming up the motor and then shutting it down all the while charging the battery to full. The in-city speed limit here is 50km/hr (30Mph), I'm sure 44 was chosen as being slightly faster than the US 25Mph city speed limit, but we don't all live in the US .....

Both of these things are things that could be solved easily in software and delivered in a future software upgrade

I don't know if you get the EV button there, but if not, it may be worth installing since it's pretty easy. What it allows you to do is cancel the warmup routine when you press it before the engine first comes on after you press the power button. This is especially handy if you want to drive the car a significant distance before it starts warming up the catalytic converter, as well as keeping the engine off for speeds up to 55km/h during normal driving, as long as you have 3+ bars on the battery SOC.

2001 Prius Photos       2005 Prius Photos
'97 Prius Simulation Prius inner workings

I do have an EV button - but this doesn't help - the traffic I drive in down the hill goes at 50kph (the speed limit) while the Prius will jump out of EV only mode and start the engine at 44kph (not 55kph) - once it starts the warmup routine the EV button stops working until it's done (44kph is from experience and it's listed in the manual) .

My complaint isn't that it does this, only that it does it at 44, 55 would be great by me since it's above the local speed limit