My visit to Toyota National Headquarters in Torrance California - And driving the Prius PHV!

My photo set from the trip: PEST - a set on Flickr

 

Thanks for the write-up!

I took the mixed city/freeway route. I managed 11.0 miles on EV before it switched to Hybrid mode somewhere along the highway. My EV Driving Ratio was 54/46 EV/HV. It's a very unique experience travelling at 60mph purely on electric power (would've been nice if I had used the engine so that I can save the battery juice for the city route after the highway). I know the EV Driving Ratio doesn't add up (11 miles over 17.1 miles should net 64/36 EV/HV so I must've had the engine running somewhere along the city route... weird)


Paint me impressed. Mark managed to get 15 miles purely in city driving and I only "lost" 4 miles by taking the highway (yes, acceleration on the onramp was done in electric too!).



On the second run, Danny and I kept the Prius PHV in PWR Mode and after another 30 mins of driving, we netted 94mpg. (lowest was 70mpg but it was easily bumped back up once the PHV went back to EV Mode).


Note that it's not strictly EV then HV mode. If the HV mode is used and there's still enough battery left to support EV mode, the car will revert back asap. I remember accelerating once in PWR Mode and the engine kicked in, revved like it normally does then it shut off when it decided that it can handle the rest of the acceleration on battery power. It was really cool (and odd) at the same time. Just imagine the engine revving then suddenly cutting out.

 

My Picasa photos from the trip: Picasa Web Albums - HTMLSpinnr (Rick) - Prius Experts...

Yea, I did catch TonyPSchaefer being a lush... ;-) There are equally incriminating photos of the rest of us floating around somewhere. We're a fun group, that's for sure!

My PHV stats: Started with a full pack, and took the city/highway mixed route. I made a couple of wrong turns, contributing to the additional use of EV. Total distance covered was 17.2 miles. Display MPG was 99.9mpg (we need another digit), only turned A/C on after we depleted EV charge. My EV/HV ratio was 61%/39%. I didn't note the exact mileage, but based on where EV ended and the destination, I'd say we got about 14.1 miles overall (including some HV use on the freeway) before we depleted the EV battery packs and continue the trip in regular HV mode.

I had an additional opportunity to drive the PHV again the next morning while delivering Russell and Danny to the airport. I forgot to reset my trip and EV/HV screens, but even at freeway speeds, we made it from TMS HQ all the way to LAX, and 0.5 miles beyond before depleting the HV pack. The entire trip still showed 99.9mpg on the display after 37+ miles.

Some other observations I noted based on driving or TMS presentations:

• Slower max acceleration at highway speed - probably due to the extra battery weight (or a factory new engine that has yet to break in).
• Much higher EV only acceleration - you can fill up the HSI screen and be pure electric. Tipping into the "power" band of the bar graph will activate the engine. This leads to pretty brisk EV only acceleration.
• While these cars were equipped with standard 15" wheels (same Yoko Avid tires as many of our cars), Toyota used the tighter steering from the Prius V in these models - quicker steering, but wider turning circle. Who knows what we'll see in production.
• Toyota installed a more generic NAV unit in these cars - no backup camera, and the voice does not do text to speech. I doubt we'd see this in production, but rather it may have been used to cut costs during the evaluation period.
• EV can be maintained up to 62mph - we succeeded at this at freeway speeds.
• The EV button has been deleted.
• The power button is blue vs. black.
• An electronic remote gas-door release is employed - perhaps due to a difference in how gas tank pressurization is handled - consider the engine not running for days, vapors cannot be easily "sent to the engine to burn", so the button likely starts a purge cycle before allowing access to the fuel tank.
• The e-brake pedal ratchet is quieter - maybe borrowed from a higher-level car.
• The prototype had cloth seats, but kept the leather steering wheel.
• While EV and HV % is tracked and separated when EV capacity is present, once you deplete the EV sub-battery packs, driving in "stealth mode" doesn't add to the EV percentage, but rather the HV percentage.
• Prototype battery pack is a LiION main HV pack, and two LiION EV sub-packs. Charging charges the main pack first (to run ECUs), then each sub-pack separately, then tops off the main pack at the end of the cycle.
• While in EV, only one sub-pack is active at a time. The car uses the fuller of the two if one is depleted > 10%, and the "next pack" if within 10% the next time the car is driven.
• While in EV mode, regen recharges both the HV and EV pack. Once the EV packs are depleted, however, they're mechanically disconnected and cannot be recharged while driving (saves relay wear)
• Battery packs are 345.6V vs 201.6V.
• Similar inverter design, however the DC/DC converter is moved into the battery pack.
• Inverter noise is louder when driving in EV only mode, especially during strong EV acceleration.
• PHV can be charged with 100-240V AC current, however the US demo cars are only provided with a 120V cord, perhaps due to NEMA regulations with "pluggable", removable cords on 220/240V circuits. Charge time is ~3 hours on 120V about half that at 240V.
• Engine warm-up cycle is delayed until engine is demanded, however engine may continue to run shortly to warm-up if triggered and EV is possible. The warm-up cycle is shorter than standard where possible.
• HVAC is far more complex - having 5 unique heat-pump modes in addition to the possibility of using engine or PTC heat. Modes depend on humidity level and whether icing of the evaporator (inside or outside) is a risk. We all went cross-eyed looking at the presentation on exactly how it worked.
• The battery meter now reflects overall charge. When you reach two bars, you've depleted the two EV sub-packs and are now running in standard HV mode, however with lots of regen, we were able to confusingly get it back to 3 bars (HV pack only). Several of us were able to reproduce this.
• The EV only range display decreased rapidly under strong acceleration, and fluctuated significantly during city driving, leaving us rather confused on what the real range left was - some tweaks here may smooth this out. Regen did add up to .4 miles of range.

All in all, I'm quite excited about this car. While the production model may vary somewhat, I think this car may fill a gap for many folks who want to plug in, but still need an extended range vehicle.

 

Just to add to Rick, heated seats & foglights are also on the Prius PHV demo cars. They also had Gen 5 "lite" navigation systems (i.e. the ones found on the Yaris/Corolla/Matrix)

 

Manual release. Just push the door to open it.

Fast forward to 2:00

 

Not in the US demo cars. They're painted silver (along with the door handles and rear garnish)