Is cruise control really not an option? Does anyone know of a site where I can send a comment to Toyota? My husband and I were going to put a deposit down on the car yesterday but without the cruise control we backed away. The dealer couldn't really care less about forwarding a comment to Toyota. This car would have made a nice commuter car to the hospital.<br><br>Hard to believe that cruise control isn't an option. If anyone has an address that we can send a comment to please forward the address to us. <br><br>I've seen several people ask about when cruise control might become an option, but no response. Does anyone have an answer?<br><br>Dr. Lisa Gregson

Have you tried the chat feature on the official Prius site (<a href=http://prius.toyota.com target=new>http://prius.toyota.com</a>)? Click on the question mark (?) on the uppper-right corner.

I did not know that live assistance was available on the site. I talked to a "representative" and was informed that cruise control would be available later in the 2001 calendar year. Their representative directed me to an email link to send comments. I suspect that this email address is nothing more than another form of "assistance" that is provided by the prius.toyota.com site. If that's true, sending a message would be a wasted effort. Why didn't Toyota include this option? Toyota is another case of a corporation telling consumers what they want rather than asking. <br><br>Unfortunately, we are looking to buy within the next six months. Does anyone else have suggestions for a SULEV that gets relatively good gas mileage?<br><br>Lisa

Lisa,<br>The Prius Team at Toyota has heard your input. Currently, we do not have a timetable for the possible release of this spec. Priusman

Priusman,<br><br>Toyota did not consider consumer needs or wants before deciding what to offer. Unless it was an intentional omission to keep volume levels down until production costs could be minimized and profits maximized. In the society that we live in, Toyota could have easily polled the consumer on which features are important to them through a web site. Toyota has been promising the Prius for two years. A poll in that timeframe would have generated significant input which I would think Toyota would value.<br><br>Toyota has heard consumers. The Canadian version will have cruise control. Yet, Toyota can not provide a date as to when the functionality will be added to the US version? Maybe late 2001 or 2002? Maybe Toyota should listen as well as hear.<br><br>I commend Toyota for the company that it is - a leader in the development and implementation of waste management programs for manufacturing sites, a developer of a highly efficient SULEV vehicle. Perhaps if Toyota provided the consumer with the features the consumer wants, Toyota would sell more cars.

My guess is the main reason for the lack of cruise control in the first generation Prius is so that Toyota can add it in the next generation. This is a marketing decision and I'm OK with it. They are entitled to their marketing stategy and nobody is forcing us to be on the bleeding edge. The "early adopters" always pay more and get less. That's fine.<br><br>But I can't accept that there's no way to add cruise control to the current Prius in the future, even when this feature is available in the new production. That is simply bad engineering. Does a design that allows modest firmware upgrade really cost that much more?