Is it normal that my right foot feels a slight vibration when I lightly press the gas pedal?

is the engine on or off?

 

It is hard to say, but I'm going to say anxiety-induced concern, unless you can come up with something more objective than what you described.

 

Try checking rotor thickness and runout?

 

Does it do this with the car completely off? The moving part of the gas pedal mechanism might need lubrication. Not that I have ever heard of this being a problem on a Prius, but in general if a piece of metal has a hinge or a bearing it is possible for it to stick when it moves, which can be perceived as a vibration. That it doesn't happen with "more force" would be consistent with that, since a little bit of sticking is easily overcome with a lot of force.

 

The gas pedal is not mechanically linked to the engine, only linked by electrical wires... So any vibration you're experiencing isn't coming from the pedal but from somewhere else. Recommended fix in this situation is feeding your mind more important things to be concerned about than how reliable one of the reliable cars ever made really is. Subtle vibrations or hard to replicate noises a customer is concerned about when their car is already 16 years old is too often a red flag that its the kind of customer you're better off avoiding doing business with because they'll create all kinds of needless hassles and worries that aren't anything worth worrying about.

 

Sure, but it is mechanically linked to the vehicle. I was suggesting that sticking in that linkage might be perceived as vibration. If it isn't sticking doing it then whatever is vibrating is being transmitted along that linkage. If it was just a general vibration (like a tire out of balance) the OP should feel it by putting a foot on the brake pedal, with no pressure, too.

 

In other words, where do you really think those weird vibes are coming from?

 

I couldn't tell from the OP's description if it was resulting from the motion of the pedal, as in mechanically near the pedal, or from the car responding to the pedal movement. That's why I asked if it did it with the car turned off.

I had a previous experience where the pedal motion alone could indicate a problem, even with the car off. My first car long, long, long ago, was a Corvair with a manual transmission. On those cars the clutch pedal was attached to a lever mounted on a hinge, and the lever held one end of a long steel cable, where the other end activated the clutch in the back of the car. Normally when that lever moved the end of the cable would rotate slightly in its mount so that the cable itself stayed straight. However, if the end of the cable seized up in the lever, instead it would flex the cable right behind the metal sleeve around the cable that fit into the lever. Back and forth, back and forth, until one day "bang" and no clutch - always while driving. Happened to me twice. Decades later, after the web became a thing, I read that some people could feel this failure coming because before it seized up fully the end part would sometimes stick and then release suddenly, causing a sort of "thump" when the clutch pedal was pressed. The real fix was of course to religiously grease the end of the cable. Those may have been the good old days, but in terms of easy access to maintenance information, it was the dark ages. There was probably a Haynes manual for the vehicle, but I didn't even know those things existed at 16.

 

If this is your first hybrid, I'd suggest watching informative YouTube videos by TheCarCareNut.....he describes the various strange noises and how those regenerative brakes work.

If you think you might have bad brakes, drive the car and then put it in neutral and use the brakes...this will only use the brakes (no regen) and let you know if the pads/rotors might be bad. (Vibrations are, definitely, not a good thing.)