NHTSA Complaint #11587370 — 2023 TOYOTA PRIUS

The 12 volt battery was low, apparently from opening and closing doors during a camping trip. After a few days of sitting unused, I attempted to drive the vehicle. I pushed the start button and the car indicated that it was "ready". When I went to shift the transmission into Drive, the transmission went into Neutral instead and stuck there. At the same time, "low battery" indicators began flashing and the displays started blanking out and flashing. I again attempted to shift into Drive so that I could initiate the gas engine and recharge the battery while driving. However, I could not shift out of neutral and then the car went out of "ready" mode but was still powering accessories. When I attempted to restart the car, it would not let me because it was in neutral. At this time, I tried to shift back into park (push-button) and got an error message that said, Parking Brake Unavailable. So here I am with a vehicle that I need to start to get the battery charged but it won't let me out of Neutral or into Park, which prevents it from starting. Repeated attempts to get the car into Park electronically were not successful and there is not a manual parking brake. The issue is that there was no way to exit the vehicle to get help without risk of it rolling away. And from a technical standpoint, while there was not enough power to shift into park or actuate the parking brake, the vehicle was still powering all non-critical functions like infotainment system, AC, convenience lights, windshield wipers, headlights, parking lights, etc. Some things could be powered down, others could not. It seems to me that, in the absence of a manual parking brake, powering the parking system electronically should have priority over all other systems. In short, I was stuck in the vehicle with my foot on the brake pedal to prevent a rollaway accident. Had I not realized this, I easily could have exited and been run over trying to pop my hood for a jump start. Or rolled over the people downhill.