2004 Prius

An email from someone I know...

I am posting this on behalf of a dear friend of mine who went to a focus/evaluation group... here's what she had to say (and asked me questions I cannot yet answer to)
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I went to a focus group this weekend and evaluated what I'm guessing is the 2004 Prius. If it is, I want to be on your waiting list.

Toyota really seems to be listening as the majority of my complaints with the previous model have definitely been addressed. If you have already seen it and are just holding the secret then you don't need to read the following, otherwise here's the scoop - First and most importantly, the seats fold down! Not only does the back seat have the 60/40 split, but the front passenger seat also folds down. The exterior of the car is very different. It looks a little bit like a Matrix, although in my opinion it is much better looking.

It is longer (sorry I don't know exactly how much longer) and the back is still a hatchback. The storage is level instead of dipping down. I believe the total storage was 16 cubic ft. The dashboard is very different. The majority of the controls are now on the inside of the driver's wheel (including buttons for a cell phone.) The shift stick is now just a stubble, about a 1/3 of the size of the current one. There aren't any buttons that are hidden from driver's view as was the problem before. In fact there are very few buttons in the
stereo/display area. The arm rest is in a much more comfortable position. There is a big cup holder (amen!) and then a 2nd, I think smaller one, flips down. One of the other big chances is that it looks
like they are going keyless. The model they showed had a place where you put a sensor in and then you pressed a button to start/stop the car. There was another button that you pressed when you wanted to park
it, or the video we saw said that you could skip this and just press the start/stop button (which brings we to the question of why do we need it then?) They showed another video in which they were approaching the idea of not even having to insert the sensor. Basically if you carried the small device on you and were within so many feet of the car it automatically unlocked the doors for you and when you got in the car you could then just hit the start button. In either case it did employ the same sort of Ready light idea, that after
you hit the start button you had to wait for the Ready light. More colors seem to be in their way as we had to evaluate molds of not only a few of the colors out now, but also a blue that was darker than the old blue
moon, but lighter than the brilliant blue (which wasn't there), also a shiny red and a green (no dark green either) but a metallic one that was light, but not too light. They still had the black, white, silver and gold colors. The new version does seem to have a little bit of different hybrid system (although I couldn't tell you what because the details were sketchy) The reported mileage was 50 highway/ 60 city and the PZELV rating (I think those are the right letters, but you know what I'm talking about.) Also, it goes from 0-60
in the 10 second range. The interior was very nice. I thought the seats were more comfortable. My only complaint is visibility, the back windshield (which does have a windshield wiper) is very small, it sort
of reminded me of the Insight. It seemed to me that there wasn't as much headroom (which isn't a problem for me, but may be for other people and that the steering wheel was smaller.

The focus group was interesting. They had models of the Civic Hybrid, Toyota Camry, Honda Civic Hybrid, Nissan Altima, and the new Prius (although of course they didn't tell you it was the new Prius.) We
were given a small screen with a stylus and on our own we walked around the cars (they had numbered spots where we were supposed to stand), go in and out, and evaluated all kinds of aspects on a scale of 1 - 9. We
also had to guess what kind of driver would purchase each: male or female, age, occupation, and descriptive words that would fit the person. They was only a few minutes when you actually talked to a
representative who took notes as to which one you would buy and why. I did express my joy in the modifications that they had made and said I was excited about possibly getting one. I was surprised at what they were suggesting might be a price $20,300 as when I first sat in it my reaction was - "Oh they are going to charge quite a bit more." My guess is that they probably have to remain in that general price range
to remain competitive and that the various packages (which they did not bring up at all) will make the price go up. I'm not sure if the style is going to be for everyone. I think the younger crowd should
definitely like it. The entire car was very high tech looking. As every one did the focus survey individually there wasn't a lot of interaction among the participants (I did talk to one Civic Hybrid owner) however there was probably only two other people among the 20 or so I saw that appeared to be younger than 40. There were doing this over the course of 3 or 4 days according to the initial mailing I received so I'm guessing that a few hundred people took part (I went in on Saturday.) I was surprised no on else in the yahoo group reported it. Obviously Toyota is still working on a few aspects or why would they spend so much money having us evaluate it if it was all ready to go? I'm guessing the whole keyless thing has not been completely flushed out (especially since that was the one part where we had to watch a video, although the car we saw did have the start/stop and park button.) Which makes we wonder what exactly the 2004 will have. They did make us hand over all cell phones, pdas and pagers, my guess is that so no one would take a
picture. I don't remember signing anything that said anything about confidentiality, however it probably would be best not to give away all the details. What do you think?

(her name is deleted to keep ya'll from email bombing her!)