I’ve owned a 2010 Toyota Prius since the day it shipped in June 2009 and have put 36,000 miles on it so far, so I’m uniquely able to tell you what’s cool about a new Prius. Last week Toyota invited me to the press’ first look at the new Prius V. Here you see it next to my older Prius.
From the outside you’ll see the biggest difference: it’s bigger, which will especially appeal to the American market. The rest of the auto press will focus on this size difference. It’s 300 lbs heavier as well, which gives it a nicer road ride and a slightly quieter one as well. But hearing all about how a new car drives is not why you read me, right?
We’re here to talk about the geeky features! The Prius V does not disappoint on that end.
1. Toyota’s engineers (here’s a photo of me with chief engineer, Hiroshi Kayukawa) are using computers to smooth out the ride.
2. JBL’s engineers found a way to make a car audio system that uses about half the power of the one in my car, while keeping the audio loudness and quality the same.
3. It offers radar-assisted features to make cruise control and automatic parking possible (those are the same as in my 2010 model).
4. Most exciting for Silicon Valley types like me is the new Entune system that lets you use your smartphone and a few modern services like Bing, OpenTable, and Pandora with it. That’s what I focused most of my video effort on.
Here’s a look at Entune, which matches your SmartPhone with the car and brings several new apps into the navigation system’s screen:
Why is this significant?
1. It brings several San Francisco-area startups into cars. OpenTable, Pandora, IHeartRadio, MovieTickets.com, and more to come. Shows there is a bigger market out there beyond just apps on smartphones.
2. It shows Toyota is going with Bing instead of Google.
3. It demonstrates how car makers are going to start mating smartphones into the driving experience.
Watch the video demo with Toyota’s Jason Schulz (sorry for taking him off track a bit, I forgot my favorite Mexican restaurant’s name, but that makes it more real world). We use it to find a new restaurant, make a reservation on OpenTable, and we talk about what the future for these kinds of new “car apps” could be (they are only shipping four apps right now, but they will ship more in the future).
As for how the Prius works, I love my car and would buy another one without hesitation. This new model makes me jealous because it could use my iPhone in a new way that I can’t with my current car. Look for many more of these kinds of features coming soon from automakers because this is the real differentiating features beyond the basics like milage, how it looks, how many people it holds, and how it drives.
If you are interested in more about the Toyota Prius V, visit the other reviews on Google News.
Scobleizer 
If you spend a couple hours per day commuting and stream Pandora on Entune or, drive down to L.A. for E3 (from SF), how much will that affect your total allowable data cap on your iPhone (or Android)? It seems that, if you are anywhere near your monthly data cap, this could easily push you past and into overage charges.
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I am actually very underwhelmed by what i saw on the video. I think car manufacturers have a long way to go in terms of usability and dashboard. Looking at the video above, the screen may look flashy, but look at the buttons next to it (seek, track, setup), they are the same buttons that have been in cars for decades. And when you are typing to look for the restaurant, and you came back to the same screen, you had to re-type everything. Just did not look very smooth. And then the convoluted system where you need to pair with a phone to have internet access. Why doesn’t the car have internet access, my Kindle does. When I got my first iPhone i was in awe, it was like no phone i had ever owned before. But every time i get a new car, it has one or more new nifty feature, but the interaction of those features is so old-fashioned. Someone needs to rethink the way we interact with our car features from the ground up. Maybe Apple should work on iDashboard.
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I would love that!
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I didn’t buy the Prius for lower emmissions or the environment. I did it to save money on gas. And that it does very well.
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Lol, this is quite funny, an American saving money in gas. Come to Europe and you will see how the gas is expensive here. Gas in your country might look expensive but it is still cheap if you compare it to Europe…
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This car is now available in our country. I have driven this car and it was wonderful. I like its’ cool look.
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