TMC Launches 'Prius α' Five and Seven Seat Models Aimed at Meeting Needs of Diverse Lifestyles Toyota City, Japan, May 13, 2011—Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) announces the launch in Japan of the "Prius α" (Prius alpha). Read more TMC aims to enhance and expand its range of hybrid vehicles around the world with more Prius derivatives, such as the five-seat Prius α-based "Prius v" planned for launch in North America this summer and the seven-seat Prius α-based "Prius +" planned for launch in Europe in mid-2012. Ken@Japan
It will be very interesting to see how the supply/demand plays out. I had the chance to check one out on Tuesday, with the camera of course. There was a lot of compelling features. I ended up taking over 700 photos, including the opportunity to put my bike inside. There was easily enough room in back to lean the detached tire against the car wall upright! The sliding rear seats sure offered a surprising amount of leg room too... or back room, for those wanting to lounge with the seat reclined. We need something to ponder while waiting for deliveries to begin. Hopefully, the photos will help. Stay tuned. .
Not only that, but it seems like the same thing is known by different names in different countries. It's getting Priuser and Priuser.
Is it true the 7 seater version with Lithium battery has a 1 kWh pack instead of the 1.31 kWh for the NiMH in the 5 seater version?
It seems the answer is yes. The Li-ion max capacity is 56(cells) X 3.6(V) X 5(Ah) = 1008Wh The NiMH max capacity is 28(modules) X 7.2(V) X 6.5(Ah) = 1310.4Wh However, we know the usable capacity on the NiMH is 40% (40-80% SOC range), and Toyota says the Li-ion will be used wider SOC range than the NiMH so that the usable battery capacity will be same. Ken@Japan
Thanks for confirming. I couldn't find that information in English. If the Lithium pack has 52% SOC range, it'll have the same usable energy. I believe Toyota is using about 70% range in the Prius PHV Lithium pack.
I'm still trying to figure out how the OP typed the Greek letter 'alpha' into his post. Or was it a cut&paste job? My iPhone's built-in Greek keyboard certainly doesn't have that character. Maybe you need some software like MS Word where you can "Insert" symbols and such? Same goes for proper Roman numerals like IV or V?
On Windows XP I'd run the Character Map (Windows-R charmap or Programs->Accessories->Character Map, I think), find it and then copy and paste. When you find it it'll, selecting or hovering should show a number. If you hold down Alt and type the number on the numeric keypad (at least I always used the numeric keypad to do it) it'll type that character. Supposedly on the iPhone, you press and hold a similar letter on the keyboard and it pops up a list to choose from. Alpha might appear under a, but maybe not.
I see. Sounds complicated. Perhaps the Japanese keyboard has these characters built-in? Ah, found it! It's in the iPhone's Greek virtual keyboard after all. The problem is that only capitalized character symbols are displayed whether you press Shift or not. So α is hidden but is actually displayed when you press Α on the virtual key. ps. just now realized that even though the 'alpha' character is displayed correctly on my iPhone it doesn't show up as such in this forum! :-(
Good stuff. A few differences in the v for those that aren't aware (and a few that I picked up from that link) - no driver's knee airbag - no Touch Tracer - new EV Mode indicator on HSD (to indicate when the Prius is in EV mode. Different from the EV Drive Mode indicator that we already have by pressing the EV button) - Updated suspension setup to smooth out bumps (Pitch & Roll??) - We (possibly) have a name for the light blue colour - Clear Stream Metallic - Better packaging of the HSD system to reduce space
It was copy&paste. The JP Unicode 'alpha' from my keyboard is like this "α". The title one of copy&paste is "α". It looks same. Ken@Japan
