The iPod/USB Interface Kits for 2010 Prius vehicles (p/n PT233-47100) are now available, or at least are listed by the Toyota Shop at a price of $199.00. As a computer buff, I was initially very excited about having a USB connection on my Prius. Unfortunately, it looks like the only thing you can do with it is to load tons of music that (if the number of songs gets much higher than 50) would take forever to scroll through. I naively assumed that with USB, I could download non-music related software and data from my PC to the Prius, or upload the same from the Prius to my PC (to create a permanent copy on my PC hard drive). As I am beginning to find out, there doesn't seem to be any software or data that can be downloaded into or uploaded from the Prius - other than music. Am I wrong in the above assumption? I hope so. It would be great if we could add or improve non-music related capability to the prius by using a USB port. What do you think?
USB is for mass storage access for MP3/WMA files. It's not so much a "transfer" device, but rather a place to leave the storage connected. I'd probably fill my 16GB fob (too slow on writes for anything useful in my field) and leave it connected.
Anything that could monitor, add to, or improve capability of the features in the 2010 Prius. For example, I have a Zenn electric vehicle which can be connected to a laptop computer. One Zenn software package that runs in the laptop allows me to alter the Zenn controller so that Regen can be turned on or off, maximum speed can be increased or decreased, real time controller variables can be monitored, etc..
