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Since I've been getting hounded by the "Hello efusco it appears that you have not posted on our forums in several weeks. We value the contributions of all our members, why not take a few moments to ask a question, help provide a solution or just engage in a conversation with another member in any one of our forums?" message every time I log in to read a few posts I thought I'd better scrounge up something....I think this'll do!

I've cross-posted from the PriusChat forum, but I know a lot of you don't go there, and even non-Prius people will appreciate this opportunity Attila had.

Attila Vass sent me the following link first..and it's a good place to start...then come back and read the follow up information:

http://www.vassfamily.net/ToyotaPrius/Toyo...oyotaVisit.html

F/U e-mail:
Hi Evan,

> Wow Attila, what a neat trip. Do you mind if I share that on the forums?

It was amazing, it's OK to share.
Some supplement for you ( OK to share )

The Chief Engineer was also very familiar with the EV modification in the US
( it wasn't even me, who brought it up! ) and apologized for not having it
enabled. He also confirmed, that they were "forced" to leave it out in
the US, as the catalyzer can get too cold if EV mode is used "incorrectly",
leading to emission problems.

I also complained about the "Open Door" indicator ( as in I don't know which
door is open ), he looked at the other Chief Engineer and they exchanged
some "look"... It was awesome!

My third issue was the fuel gauge, when I mentioned the word "bladder" they
smiled and nodded. I told them that my "measurement system" uses historical
analysis, so if the sensors are "so-so", the software must be extra "good good"...
We laughed.

I also mentioned, that I consider the Prius as a revolutionary project,
not only because of the technology, but because it's daring effort to move
the auto industry from the present "ICE only" course. When I compared their
efforts to Ford's T1, they were very and I mean very glad.

There was a lot of talk about the 4th generation Prius, mostly incremental
changes as far as I can tell, needless to say they did not say anything
specific.

They seemed to be really, really bright people. It was an amazing
honour. We can expect more awesome developments from Toyota in the near future
for sure and they seem to use the Prius' success to fuel more R&D on the
advanced vehicle topics.

Cheers,
Attila

For those of you not familiar with Attila, he's a guy that doesn't spend a lot of time haunting the forums, but is one of the most innovative and technically savvy Prius people out there. He is the guy who decifered almost all the CAN codes we now use in CAN-View and that have been used by many others. He's on my very short list of people I'd pick for an opportunity like he had and I'm sincerely thrilled that he got to go.

Well, I guess it works to keep hounding people ;) Glad you posted. I hope those screens don't annoy you too much as they are ment to encourage people to post every once and a while.

I sure would love to talk to engineers like that but unfortunately I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about the technical stuff and they would probably laugh at my simplistic questions.

efusco,

Lurking around a forum you are familiar with (;) ), I got in touch with someone in the D/FW area and might drive a Prius for the first time.

If anyone has a "Prius 101" links, I'll gladly read them so my first Prius experience will be a good one.

Delta you can start with http://john1701a.com/ for the general and go to http://prius.ecrostech.com/original/PriusFrames.htm for the particulars.

Wayne

Thank you FireEngineer. :)

Check my linkfarm (http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/prius-linkfarm.html) for pointers to a bunch of info-sites too,
including the above. I try to fairly point out toward all the
efforts others have made, not just all my own silly hacks...
.
It's well-known that Toyota lurks in all the large forums, and
they know exactly what people want, but the info may not be
passing to quite the right places up the chain. But almost all
of the points Attila brought up have been raised many times
before and are still findable. [This is another good reason to
allow not-logged-in searching, see my post over in the "look-n-feel"
thread..]
.
_H*

Hi Evan:

___Oh how I would have loved to be in the room when those guys started discussing all of these topics!!! Emissions under a user defined EV mode would have been a great one! And oh how I would have loved to discuss the Prius’ bladder … The previous and current gen PZEV based Camry and now TCH have been bladderless for years. So why the extra cost on top of the variance in fuel fills again and again with the Prius I and II’s? And gen IV … I have sleuthed enough info from Toyota managers speaking openly in terms of its capabilities and construction to fill a page. If Attila would have had the doc in his hands, they may have opened up a bit more? What a very lucky individual and please thank him from all of us here for posting his experiences to you personally and for the various pics from the trip to Japan itself.

___Good Luck

___Wayne