A woman’s Toyota Prius’ infotainment system turned on one day and seemed to have an identity crisis.
TikTok user Carter Thompson (@c._art_.er) posted the video last week. It shows the interior of his wife’s 2007 Toyota Prius. Clearly, something is going haywire with her infotainment system. It flickers on and off before displaying a screen with the Lexus logo on it. “Lexus?” Thompson’s wife says incredulously.
Suddenly, the Prius logo reappears. The screen flickers between the two logos a couple of more times before finally turning on to its home screen. “OK, well…” she says, nonplussed.
In the caption, Thompson writes, “My wifes 2007 prius really wants to be a Lexus today!!” The video has amassed a whopping 1.1 million views. In the comments, viewers cracked a bunch of jokes.
“It’s 2024 mam, your Prius is free to identify as a Lexus,” wrote one user.
A second user quipped, “five nights at toyotas.”
A third user said, “Prius fighting demons rn.”
However, not everybody thought it was so funny. One user explained, “Yeah, Toyota owns Lexus and they share parts on the second generation Prius. They have the same navigation screen.”
@c._art_.er My wifes 2007 prius really wants to be a Lexus today!! #toyota #prius #lexus #wtf
♬ original sound - cARTer
This very thing happened to a Prius owner and Reddit user about three years ago
In a post to the r/prius subreddit, the person showed a similarly flickering infotainment screen. “Didn’t know you unlocked Lexus mode at 273k,” they wrote.
In response, one user who previously worked for an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) explained in more detail. “They use the same infotainment system/setup. The OEM programs them so that the displayed format, software, etc. Is based on the make, model, and trim of the vehicle (which is why when you pay $400 extra for the dynamic lines in your rear camera view, all the dealer has to do is modify a few values in the computer and voila!” wrote the user.
They continued, “As far as I can tell, this is true of almost every vehicle and item in the car that uses computerized systems (and I personally can’t vouch for it but I understand the capitalism behind it). In this case, it appears that there is some sort of communication error in the infotainment system that is making the system send the wrong code (example: if 10110100 is a Prius, and 11111111 is a Lexus, then a short may be causing the communication issue).”
Prius models are apparently prone to these failures. Some issues, such as a circuit board failure, might force you to replace the entire system.
The Daily Dot reached out to Carter via TikTok comment and Toyota via media contact form for comment.
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