My real-world experience with the PHV

hmm. where the car come from? did it have to be transported thru a Kansas dust storm to get to you?

 

You lucky bum! Interesting errr... discoveries. :rockon:

 

+1
Here's me . . . being envious:

But that only applies to 'regular' people. See, Tony doesn't HAVE a feminine side - so normal rules don't apply-


.

 

Tony S: I read your driving report on your other blog. Lots of informative, interesting data. Thanks for sharing with the rest of us.

 

Now, we all understand that 2.29 cents per mile = 0.0229 dollars per mile, right?

Just the way you said it made me think of VerizonMath: Verizon doesn't know Dollars from Cents

 

Ha ha. But I'd know now, wouldn't I?

They all came from right here in Torrance, CA. In fact, last week Erica and I went over to our garage service area to pick them up, make sure the aux battery was charged, and get them loaded on the trailer. Sorry we didn't have a chance to clean them

Doug Coleman
Prius Product Manager
Toyota Motor Sales, USA

 

And now for serious comments...

I find it interesting Toyota went this route. It would make more sense to build the brick into the car, and essentially just have an extension cord that runs between the house and the car. The extension cord would be cheaper than having to buy one with a brick, and be better received by customers. Keep one in the house, keep one in the trunk "just in case" you want to use it elsewhere.

The problem I have with retractable cables, in general, is reliability. Sometimes it can be hard to make them go back in. Other times, it seems they'll randomly start retracting, which can lead to stress on the plug. Often their performance will degrade over time. Having a rotational motion introduces a more complex electrical connection, and more complexity means more failure points. I would much prefer getting two cables than having a retractable one, based on general experience.

I can think of a few uses for it:
- Total distance traveled in EV versus hybrid. Combined with Kill-a-watt, this can tell you exactly how much those EV miles cost. probably more math than the average person would want to do.
- Once you have a real number for mileage (something below 99.9), you can figure out how well the car is doing in hybrid mode. Simply take the mileage and multiply it by the % hybrid. So if you had a total of 70mpg and 60% was hybrid, then in hybrid you got 42 mpg. This would help a ton in comparing it to current model Prii.

Time to renew that AAA membership!

With the previously stated 99.9 mpg for the trip (aka too high to display), we can calculate the minimum mileage you had in hybrid mode to be: 18.9 mpg. Like I said, that's a minimum, and probably no where near the real number. If we assume a hybrid mileage of 50mpg, then for that trip you had a total mileage of 263mpg!

 

Thanks Tony, and nice blog!

Looking at the picture showing EV/HV use, I first thought it suffered from not knowing what the mpg is during HV use. But as Eagle says above, Toyota can arbitrarily choose an mpg number, and then people can eyeball the graphic ratio.

Personally I would simply prefer gas consumption in gallons and electric consumption in kWh over distance, but we live in a cartoon era.

 

When you look at your report plus my own driving patterns: if and when a Prius PHV or equivalent gets 40 miles EV I would be EV 70% of the time during the course of the week - I mean this via Prius type HSD vs what the Volt is doing where the mpg is pretty lame after EV mode is exhausted.

Get to 100 miles range and level 3 charging and at that point range anxiety is a none issue.

 

Because this is a plug-in, the plug-in cable is very important. The PHV charge cable has an inline brick about two feet from the wall plug. This brick is about a foot in length and reasonably heavy. There are mounting holes so you can hang it on the wall next to the electrical outlet. If you never anticipate charging anywhere else, you can mount the brick and always plug at home. However, if you ever plan on charging anywhere but at home, you have to unplug the plug, wind the cable and stow it in the car. [...] An option would be to buy a second cable to keep exclusively in the car. Another option would be for Toyota to develop a cable that pulls out from the car and can be retracted when charging is complete. Just a thought.

Tony, is the recharging cable permanently attached to the vehicle or it has a connection/disconnection receptacle like the proposed [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772"]SAE J1772[/ame].
Does Toyota engineering/manufacturing designated a location withing the vehicle for the storage of the charging cable assembly including " the Brick", terminology that I do not like.
Can you please post a picture of the external charging device.
So far by your comments we know that recaptured Regen will recharge the Hybrid system batteries.
- Also some charge will reach the additional internal PHV batteries.
It certainly does happen in my PHEV conversion similar to Toyota's newest addition.

PS:Doug, now I will have to change plans. Probably changing the face mask color will do and nobody will notice.:focus:

 

not using a standard extension cord is a mistake. i can only hope that this prototype issue will be resolved with the finished version. so 3.66 kwh in, sorry but missed the pack specs. what is the capacity? if around 3 kwh, then you can get an 80-90% charge in around 90 minutes then?

 

Yes I like GPM better than MPG.
http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...tality-behind-terminology-mpg-vs-l-100km.html

 

I want to know the HV functional (used) HV capacity too. I have read widely different reports how much energy is lost in charging.

Sounds like Tony is charging at about a 1 kW rate. Is the kill-a-watt accurate at that power draw ?

 

P3 - Kill A Watt

It's capable of going as high as 1.875 kW, so i would assume it's accurate enough at the rate Tony is getting on his recharge.

 

I would guess that's more of a legal thing than anything else. To recharge, the Prius is pulling plenty of current, and many extension cords out there aren't rated to handle that much current over an extended period of time... if left on one of those long enough, you run the risk of fire. I would e-mail them back and ask if Kill-a-watt is acceptable, as it's rated to handle that much current over extended amounts of time... plus it gives us some great information

 

umm u mean 18.75 KW? because if you are right, i burn mine up every day. when i plug my Zenn in, it usually starts around 16 KW and slowly drops down. but usually takes a good 15-20 minutes before it gets below 15 KW and over an hour to get below 12 KW