It seems that perhaps Toyota make an obvious change in the tail lights when a model generation if a year or two from its end. In the late 1990's Camrys the tail was a straight "ribbon" across the back with a gap at the licence plate. In 2000 the section on the trunk lid became a trapazoid the expaned to about the height of the licence plate. This year the Camry tail lights with from red-white-red to white-red-white. Have any noticed a similar trend in other Toyotas? This might be the signal when a new Prius generation is a year or two away.
Depends. The Matrix got clear taillights similar to our Prius but for the Corolla, all it got was a clear indicator cover as opposed to the yellow circle of the 03/04 model. However, I do agree that the taillights are what Toyota change when it does an update. (Solara, Avalon, Corolla, Camry, RAV4, Sienna). Most are minor (like the Corolla described above), some are major like the Camry you described. I'm willing to go with minor on the subject of the Prius.
They're all copying and merging in the trendy sporty "euro-style" (which is actually two separate styles of lots of chrome-reflective Japanese style and dark tinted European style) lights that first showed up in Toyota's Altezza aka Lexus IS300 from years ago, imo. Nissan's newly redesigned Altimas have this style also, and you've seen all the rice rocket Civics and other cars with aftermarket tail lights emulating this style. It's a long slow trend from round-opaque, to square-opaque, to aerodynamic, to transparent square reflective, to round-again aerodynamic transparent reflective trending styles over the decades of the head/tail lights, it seems. There's even some move by Honda away from orange turn-lights to the more USA style red-only tail lights. I wonder what's next.
Yeah, I noticed that on the TSX, Civic, EL. It's really annoying cause I can't tell in that instant whether it's really their indicators or them just puslating the brake pedal. Kinda funny that they would follow what Lexus did. Who would've thought?
