Toyota Prius dash keeps eyes on the road
June 18, 2009 by Matt Brogan
The latest Toyota Prius is gaining applause for its ergonomically advanced interior that contributes to improved road safety by reducing driver eye movement.
Two high-tech innovations – Touch Tracer and Head-Up Display – allow the driver to view important vehicle information with minimum eye movement.
Touch Tracer is the first display system in the world to allow steering wheel controls to read out on the instrument panel, which is positioned at an ideal distance for at-a-glance reading of information.
The system allows the driver to control various on-board functions without the need to look down or take their hands from the steering wheel.
When the driver lightly touches the audio or information dials on the steering wheel, a duplicate image is automatically displayed on the instrument panel, right in front of the driver.
An orange light on the duplicate display shows what button the driver’s finger is touching before pressing it to make a selection.
Touch Tracer can be used to adjust audio controls and cabin temperature as well as checking energy consumption.
New Prius also features a Head-Up Display that projects key information onto the base of the windscreen, so the driver can read it without taking eyes off the road.
Displayed information includes vehicle speed and a monitor that shows how economically the car is being driven.
Prius models equipped with satellite navigation also benefit from the head-up display of turn-by-turn and distance-to-exit information. The display can be adjusted for height and brightness, or may be switched off.
The all-new Toyota Prius goes on sale in Australia during July.
Source: Toyota
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Being a little short sighted in my middle age, my eyes tend to focus (even when wearing specs) on bugs and things on the windscreen, which I find enormously distracting. I think a HUD would be a real problem for me. No doubt I am in the minority.
I love this tech! BMW radios have the touch thing (where if you just put your finger on the button, the station/navigation point/phone number comes up on the bottom of the main screen) in their cars.
It’s definitely an innovation that should be in more cars, especially for the buttons on the controls far away from the windshield (e.g. radio, air conditioning, chair controls, basically anything that has you taking your eyes off the road!), but I’m not so sure if doing it for the steering wheel controls is that necessary…
But anything that gets more of this touch-tech into cars is a good thing in my opinion!
Innovation???, I recall the last model Nissan Bluebird SSS (long long time ago, 1993?) had a heads up display for speedo???, although that was about it, the speedo…
Can anyone that has owned a car with HUD (such as the old Nissan Bluebird) tell me their thoughts. I am surprised this one hasn’t really taken off.
Touch Tracer looks like a good idea, especially if you own a 2 cars with steering wheel buttons in different places.
Steve, I drove a Citroen C6 a few days ago with HUD. It’s groovy, but you could still run into a bus if your eyes and mind are fixated on the fascinating digits :)
its all the same with this new geek stuff
u buy a new car, u are exited about all the little new features HUD, distance-controll, the lightstuff (i don’t know the english name for the automatic turn on – turn off driving beam ) and so on….
but after the first 200 miles of driving (specially on the Autobahn) u will turn nearly everything off!
Any idea of whats the price is in Oz yet??
It’s cool! I’m into this new innovations and would definitely love one in my car.It’s great actually, make cars interesting.
GM vehicles have HUD on (some) of their vehicles since 1988!
Very popular in the US.
@Stevo: My dad has a car with a HUD (BMW X6), and the HUD’s actually pretty useful. I found it weird to drive with at the start (At first I tended to either ignore it or be fixated on it), but after a couple of weeks I found that I stopped looking at the speedo/dash, and just used the HUD.
And also because the Navigation also comes up on the HUD, I also stopped using the central navigation screen while driving (except when I look at the clock).
After driving a car with a HUD, if you were to get into another car, you’ll find yourself looking at the glass where the HUD normally would be wondering what the speed is. (At first I thought that the HUD was a gimmick but I was soon converted.)
It may keep eyes on the road, but being a Prius, will those eyes be closed?
Driving around with your eyes closed “alex” i hope i am nowhere near you on the road! from all reports so far the new prius does perform very well, might surprise a few!
HUD was also available as an option on early 90’s honda prelude i believe.
Blaze, you’re right, the BMW system is quite good. Definatly the best one i have seen but still does take a while to get used to it. The active cruise control display is great!
How about another revolutionary idea, put the dash infront of the bloody driver not the centre consol.
Motorhead, I couldn’t agree more. What is with this putting the controls away from standard line of sight where every driver around the world has learnt to include them into their perripheral vision???
Simple little screens (like Fords HMI interface screen) places neatly between the standard positioned dials worke every bit as well and may well be less distracting to those of us who have to travel to places like Roma at night. (long straight poor quality roads, no street lights or fences, with wild life and livestock free to sleep where they please!) As for the steering wheel controls, can anyone tell what the dfference is between taking a quick glance at the wheel is to looking to the side at a diagram and decifering what you are pressing, especially in terms of safety??
So in reality the HUD is really needed on the Prius only because the dash is in the wrong place to start with?
At least CA identified this as a Toyota press release, and you can read into it what you wish.
Actually I find it amussing, Toyota (and Nissan “Xtrail”) found it was “Safer” to put the instruments in the centre of the dash as part of the (quote from Echo’s press release) “Natural sweep of vision whilst driving”, but here they are with HUD directly INFRONT of the driver????? The mind boggles :-)_
DesignEngr that is so true!
I have no idea why Toyota keeps insisting on putting the speedo in the centre of the dash. It looks so stupid when you look down at the steering wheel and all you see is a big bit of plastic.
@Frontman- at least Nissan came to their senses when they updated the Xtrail by putting the speedo back where its meant to be- in front of the driver!
My M5 has HUD, and it works great. Satellite navigation commands are also displayed.
My wife’s 335i has buttons utilising similar technology to the “touch tracer” described here.
Tricky dash,Ugly car.
Centre dash yuk!!
Being an electronic enthusiast, I was disappointed to find out that the 2010 Toyota Prius marketed to the United States does not include HUD – while the HUD is included in the new Prius sold in other countries such as Australia.
I don’t understand why HUD was omitted. It should improve driver safety.