My real-world experience with the PHV

Yeah, but in this forum? You don't have to build up the desire for the next incarnation of The Prius.

I'd actually just like a longer term evaluation.

 

Great job Tony.
Does the charging system turn off after the batteries are full? Considering your electricity costs have you calculated your cost per mile using electricity vs. gas?

 

I'm late here too, just saw the thread today. But, if Toyota is still watching:

1) If I can not choose when to be in EV and when to be in HV, no sale. Clever as the Toyota programmers are, THEY do not know what my route will be.
- For example, if I'm going to go ~14 miles in the morning DOWN hill and 14 miles back in the afternoon UP hill, I want the HV half to be where I have potential for long periods of glide so I use less gas (that is the point of a PHEV, no??).
- If I am going a long distance on the interstate followed by 10 miles 'city', why would I want to quickly use up all the PHEV capacity going 65 MPH when there is the most wind resistance then have to use gas for the stop and go 'city'? Unless the car is charging the PHEV batteries while running on the interstate, forcing it to use EV until they are depleted, then cutting them off, is of no value.

2) Can it glide in EV mode? If not, again no sale. On mornings I go to the rink before work (6.5 miles), it is 1/3 gas, 1/3 electric and 1/3 glide. If I have to use electricity for 3/3 rather than 2/3, I am actually using MORE fuel with a PHEV. BTW, my electric cost is 13.5 cents/KWH so my per mile EV cost would be 50% higher than Tony's

 

Tony,

From your blog thread:

Is your Mom a hypermiler?

What kind of MPG do you think she'd get?

 

Buy her one Tony! Everyone needs to help with the 'save the planet' movement!

My in-laws bought a 2010 last summer. She turned 77 in April and he turned 85 in March. Your mom can handle it

 

Sorry if this has been asked already, but I didn't see it mentioned.

Have you done a comparison of the time from 0-60 mph using EV and using hybrid? I would think the car would have better performance when using both the electric and I.C.E. simultaneous. But I'd be interested to hear what kind of difference.

 

It will be the same. flooring it in EV mode will engage the ICE (i.e. you go into HV mode).

 

so has anyone driven one in the mountains? I really like to know how one would do up here up and down the hills.

does the battery regen coasting and braking on the plug-in?

Also, why do you use N while gliding? Is there no way to feather the pedal in EV mode?

 

Those of us who live near mountains would disagree. Here's a profile that might interest you. This isn't my daily commute, thankfully, but it's the hill I was thinking of when I mentioned I could charge any capacity battery that would fit in the car. A tad more oomph would be appreciated on the way up, too.

Edit: Here's the other side of the hill. As you can imagine, cycling this one is tough. Drying up and blowing away on a hot sunny day (40C) is entirely within the realm of possibility.

 

I max out my battery in regen routinely, despite my best efforts to avoid doing so. The main reason is that I am not starting from empty, because the Prius as we know tends to keep the HV battery at around 50%. This limitation will present itself in the PHEV too, as the design stands. So instead of having up to PHEV pack capacity to use for regen, once it is depleted the driver is back to 0.5 kwh or so.

Evan's last point is only true until the friction losses from higher speed are greater than regen conversion losses. That happens pretty quickly.

 

If there are solid reasons for NOT being able to charge all the available capacity, then that's the way it will be done. And I understand there's no point over-designing past the point of usefulness for most people. I'm just saying these big hills really do exist, and the current battery capacity is fully charged long before I get to the bottom. I wish I could just let the speed build - add some wings and I could really glide home.


Edit: Maybe there's something I'm not understanding about how the regen circuitry functions. Is the charging-by-plug-in capacity somehow reduced by increasing the charging-by-kinetic-energy capacity? Is there a reason to have a 'plug-in-only-tank'?

 

We actually have several hills that are 13%-15% grades and 6-8 miles long. No problem topping off my battery on those around here.

In addition, the road from Tioga Pass to Lee Vining in California is just over 18 miles long and goes from a 10,000 ft. elevation down to about 6500. I've biked it, but never driven it in the Prius.