107 MPGe for Prius Plug-In

Fun with arithmetic

 

Very close to 20% larger.
UK: 20 fl oz per pint
US: 16 fl oz per pint
But US fl oz ~ 1.04 UK fl oz

 

I think you are right. As SOC get higher, HSD discharges more aggressively to reach the target SOC. I also don't think Toyota will allow the PHV pack recharge using gasoline.

I mentioned it simply to show the energy waste between 37 MPG and 50 MPG. Hey, 50 MPG Prius can recharge the battery and still beat Volt's 37 MPG. After less than an hour, you'll get a full PHV pack with the energy Volt would have wasted otherwise.

 

What thrills me is that with effectively NO battery range in the current Prius, many MANY owners have managed to add a battery pack and give the car some BEV range and better gas mileage. Now that the car will come from the factory with some real BEV range... adding more will be the logical next (easier than before) step. While I'm not always thrilled with Toyota's baby steps in this arena.... they ARE taking steps. And those steps are headed in the proper direction. Yay.

 

1 British Imperial Gallon = 1.2 Us gallon, or 20% more than US gallon.

 

Let's face it. The US gallon just isn't worthy.

 

I am in favor of Toyota offering 2 batteries in the Prius, as in laptop, a standard and a large capacity. But, already I hear complaints about the lack of spare tire and reduced cargo room.

Q. Do you think they can fit a 10or a 12 Kwh Li in the Prius?

 

hmm. I didn't get it the first time, because the concept is sort of foreign to me, and I hope after this it will become foreign to you. There are extra losses generating this surplus energy and charging and discharging the battery, so employing this strategy will net you fewer miles for the same gasoline than the standard prius, but toyota would likely need to charge you more money for the extra hardware. Your scenario really gets rid of the use of electric miles, which is an improvement for most of us over the standard prius. This is the point of PHEVs.

Yes I am glad too, and happy for the fact that toyota added back the ev button to give the driver some control over the battery use.

 

How about this?

For every ~40 miles you drive in Prius PHV on gas, the efficiency gain over the Volt (also driving on gas) can power 14 EV miles.

I am using the "free full charge of PHV pack" to represent the wasted gasoline energy from the inferior 1.4L gas engine.

It has nothing to do with efficiency difference between the cordless Prius and Prius PHV that you are trying to inject into the discussion.

 

Since the kit makers can, toyota can, but..... I don't think they will until gen IV.

 

The next generation of "tri-metal" (NMC) lithium battery is supposed to double the capacity. Toyota, Nissan and LG Chem are working for the next gen. In theory, it is possible.

 

Awesome, this means a lot is possible with Gen IV, although that is about 3 years out. As for the upcoming car, I am hoping for 15 mile EV with 55 HV mode after depletion.

 

That is much better, you should probably say miles instead of EV miles. Its important to remember YMMV and this ignores EV miles, this figure will be close to the same whether PHV or standard prius. Remember the break even on gasoline is at a lower mileage because the phv can actually produce some electric miles. For someone buying the phv this is important. Wasted is a loaded term, that I wouldn't use. I don't think it would be fair to say that if a volt owner used 11 gallons less gasoline per 1000 miles the prius driver has wasted all that gas. Around the time the phv comes out ford will also have a c-max energi that likely has ev range and cs mpg in between the prius phv and volt. It will be good to have choices.

Wasn't that the topic of the thread, the mpge of the phv prius. The non plug-in prius is the important benchmark. The 107mpge is for a european test that is much easier than the epa test. There is in implied number of miles and equivalence between electrical and gasoline mileage. The epa 2013 will likely have a blended MPGe for a small number of miles around 13 that may be near this high rate, but then will include a CS mpg that should be around 50.

 

Well, doubling the capacity for the same physical size would be great.

But, LG Chem makes the Volt's battery, how is that possible?

 

If they can fit the Leaf's pack in a Leaf, they can certainly fit a 12 kWh pack in the Prius. What can fit really isn't the limiting factor here.

 

I was thinking in terms of the Prius being a plug-in hybrid with 2 propulsion systems, space and weight will be limiting factors.

 

Ah, got it. Yes, it would be far easier to get rid of all that extra cost weight, volume and complexity of of the ICE, exhaust and gas tank. Hey, a guy can dream.

 

If NMC means Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt, than I had understood it always had double the capacity of the LiFePO4 type used to transportation use. What NMC, especially C, lacked was safety and longevity. Are these problems now being fixed?

 

True that would be inefficient charging while cruising, but I think the standard Prius do charge the battery while freeway cruising?

There were several times where the HV battery has low SOC after some traffic jam, and was recharged back to 6/8 bars (2 from the top) when the traffic flow was back to normal after maybe about 10 mins of cruising.

Granted, the FE might hurt a bit, but just imagine if Toyota can somehow manage to find an efficient way to recharge the li-on battery while crusing...

 

Regen is a braking function so how long would you want/could you cruise on the highway with your brakes on?

You would get some recharging going down a steep hill but I doubt that you would find a hill steep enuogh to fully recharge the batteries.

Remember there is no free lunch, to charge the batteries from the ICE you have to put in more energy than the batteries take since there is going to be losses in the charging system. The whole idea of a plug-in is to be able to use power from the grid to drive your car rather than using gas so you don't really want to use gas to charge the batteries.

While it would be nice to have the car fully charged when you get to your destination it isn't likely to happen.