Clueless here... Why is Park button unlit?

In all my years driving Priuses, I never concerned myself with a separate Park light. A large "P" appears on the instrument panel, but I hardly notice it because I trust that it goes into park when I press the Park button. But most of the time it just goes into Park when I turn off the car.

 

I had to go check my 2024 Prime:

On my car the “Park” button lights up blue and the “Start/Stop” button lights up white and dims with the dashboard dimmer control.

Maybe your headlights were turned off?

 

The P button will light up if you turn on your lights. If you had a higher trim with automatic headlights, it would turn on automatically. You can also just shut off the car using the power button. That automatically shifts the car into park. It doesn't hurt the car or anything, so you don't have to worry about that.

 

How long the headlights, thus the button light, stay on after shutdown should adjustable in the settings.

 

I noticed today that the Park button is actually not lit once I shift into drive - a small “D” lights up. The Park button seems very intuitive to use though.

 

It's dark here now, so i went out to check, out of curiosity.
The blue P lights up, and so do all the other gear positions. I don't know if the headlights have to be on. They were on automatically, and I never thought to turn them off.

 

Just to confirm, the lighted indicators on the shifter light up regardless of the headlights.

 

That wasn't in question. What was in question was why the P button didn't light up when in something other than park. Also, your Canadian-spec XSE has a few pertinent differences from the original poster's US-spec LE.

Daytime:
The currently selected mode button will strongly light up(in color*). The others will remain dark.

Nighttime/headlights on:
The currently selected drive mode indicator will moderately light up(in color), the other indicators will faintly light up(white).

Differences between XSE and LE:
The XSE has automatic headlights which includes an ambient light sensor on the dash. The LE does not.

Differences between Canadian- and US-spec vehicles:
The US cars have the ability to turn off all lights(including DRLs), the Canadian cars do not. (the light stalks are different)


So what is going on with the original poster? They say they park in a parking garage and can't see the P button because it's not illuminated. From context, it's safe to assume this happens when they are entering the garage in daytime. They don't have their headlights on because they don't need them outside during the day. When they enter the garage, there are enough artificial lights for them to get by, so they don't turn on their headlights between the garage entrance and their parking spot. Because of this, only the currently selected mode is lit up at all.

But if you(XSE) or I(LTD) entered the same parking garage, our cars would sense the drop in light and turn on our headlights. This would have the side effect of dimly lighting all the other drive mode buttons. I'm able to accurately test this because I have a US-spec car where the lights can be fully shut off. You're not able to easily do the same because you are unable to fully turn off the headlights in your Canadian-spec car.


*park - blue, drive - blue, neutral - green, reverse - orange

 

Well, if you must control the exact vector of this discussion...
The other indicators do light up in different colors..

 

Accurately answering the original poster's question and not further confusing them with incorrect info for their situation = controlling the exact vector of this discussion. Got it.

 

You love to be in control.
We gottit.

 

You'll see a "P" on the dashboard. Also "D" or whatever when you're driving.