Update and technical details on my PHEV project

I was planning a great april 1st post but got nuthin but a tan from being on vacation.

...Prang extender eh? I like it!.

along those lines ...my wife has named the newest frankenstein to come out of the shop.. definately not for the faint of heart
a 6 door prius with a utility bed.
she calls it an " El-Primo"

 

Two questions for imwoody. How is Leaf rebuild going?Images plz..Lastly, have you made a drop in HV battery replacement for the Prius OEM HV battery pack ?

 

We are rebuilding two LEAFS, that discussion has been moved to the LEAF forum
here is a link, there are photos also
My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - LEAF wreck. Oh, the horror!

Yes, after paying for and not receiving parts from PIS, We have moved forward with a drop in replacement PRIUS pack, it is 5kw/h and is plug and play.
we licensed software from Ewert energy, and are expecting to be shipping 4 a month this summer. please dont expect them sooner than 90 days after you place the order.
you may visit the autobeyours website for photos and views of our facility.

 

http://www.autobeyours.com/gifs/2012%20LEAF%20white/work%20begins%202012%20leaf%20006.jpg

and the other LEAF
http://www.autobeyours.com/gifs/11%20LEAF/2011%20Leaf%20cowl%20and%20cradle%20009.jpg

 

Hello!

I found this thread and I am very impressed what pEEf has done so far!

I also wanted to build my own PHEV out of a Prius II, I also wanted to replace the original battery and the original BMS and replace it with something selfmade, but I hadn't the idea of changing the CAN messages to the ICE ECU, so I am very interested in pEEfs knowledge especially for the CAN messages to the ICE ECU.
As I saw pEEf wasn't here in the forum for about 2 months, so has anyone got an e-mail adress from him, so that I can ask him some question about the CAN messages? It would be very nice if someone could send me this as a PM.

Thanks a lot!
Manuel

 

i think you can find him on the leaf forum.

 

Thanks bisco!

I already tried this, but on the leaf forum there is no member named "pEEf" maybe he has another name in that forum?

Thanks
Best regards from Austria
Manuel

 

Mani,
I suggest buying the orion bms from ewert energy, it will plug into your gen 2 prius.
they also will license their own version of the can messaging spoofing computer called the HEM to you for less than you can build it. ( if you value your time anything above 10 bucks an hour).

 

Hello!

I know that they make great things for the Prius, but I want to build it to my own! Thanks a lot

 

Mani,

Checkout this thread: YAPiP - recreating pEEf's approach | PriusChat

Like you I want to build my own.

All the best,
John H.

 

His profile at mynissanleaf (Ingineer) says he doesn't want private messages and to contact him via his business website at EVSE Upgrade - Products.

My Nissan Leaf: Ingineer Profile Page

 

Mani,
Here's some things you should consider b4 embarking on this project.

The Prius in general (Plug In excepted) is not a good candidate for "PHEV" conversion unless you use the "Enginer" type of conversion. Here's why:

1) It is designed as a gasoline (primary) car with electric assist. It is for this reason that the electric motors do not have enough power to safely propel the car. With electric mode only, the car is really underpowered and not safe to drive on the streets
2) The Prius has advanced, high-tech monitoring systems (called ECU's) that all work together to make this engineering marvel work. Adding more battery capacity requires modifying what one ECU sees which causes multiple problems with other ECU's.

The old adage that "every time you fix a problem you have to solve another" has major application here. A typical scenario may go like this:

Problem/Fix: The battery runs out or low in "EV" mode, I need a bigger battery (thousands of dollars)
New problem: Adding a bigger battery requires spoofing or/reprogramming the Battery ECU
Fix: Then I will reprogram/spoof the ECU so I can use the bigger battery (hundreds of dollars)
New problem: Now that I have this bigger battery and the ECU spoofed, the ICE still wants to come on when I accelerate normally
Fix: I can use OutOfGas mode to stop the ICE from coming on (cheap)
New problem: The stock electric motors/inverter setup are not strong enough to power the car in most situations and... if I want to use the ICE, I have to pull over, turn the car off and then back on to allow the ICE to be used (then you have the above problem of the ICE coming on too much)
Fix: I need to install a larger electric motor (thousands of dollars)
New problem: The inverter cannot power the new motor
Fix: I need a new motor controller/inverter (thousands of dollars)
New problem: I've spent so much money on converting my Prius that there is no return on investment and I can't sell it b/c noone wants a car that's had this many mods
Fix: I need to take every mod off and return the car to its original state (thousands of dollars)

(It reminds me of a story I heard in grade school where a king had mice in his castle and wanted to get rid of them. So... he brought in cats then, he had too many cats so... he brought in dogs. This continued until he brought in elephants. Having too many elephants, the only thing he could think of to get rid of the elephants was mice. He brought back the mice, the elephants left and he lived happily ever after)

There are other numerous reasons why the Prius shouldn't be converted unless you're going to gut the HSD and add an electric drive system that can handle the requirements. The stock Prius electrical system cannot handle the requirements on its own. It needs the gas engine and the gas engine needs the electrical system. They have a symbiotic relationship.

 

Hi usnavygtc -

I respectfully disagree.

Addressing your two points:

1) The power of the electric motors appear to be sufficient for "around town driving". I make this statement based on a couple of people who have experience driving in electric only mode. Certainly the motors weren't spec'd for high speeds - but I don't agree that the car is unsafe on the streets. (I do agree that the conversion needs to automatically be able to switch between EV and blended modes seamlessly - more on that later).

2) The great thing about the Prius 2 vs. the Prius 3 is that there are more separate ECUs in the gen 2. In the gen 3 some of this functionality has been combined. Having more separate ECUs makes it easier to introduce changes to the system. It's not difficult from a hardware perspective to introduce the changes, nor is it difficult from a basic software perspective. In other words it's easy to create a well-behaved CAN device that will work well on the vehicle CAN bus. The only difficult part is the knowledge of the protocols used by Toyota. This is difficult because it comes with no support from Toyota. Thanks go to a lot of folks on this forum for deciphering the most important bits. However, if there were a published Toyota document then this part would also be "easy". So, it's an artificial road-block not a fundamental issue with the approach.

Addressing the "Enginer" approach:

From what I understand their approach is to keep the original pack "topped off" by constantly charging it from a secondary pack. Thus the vehicle still operates as if it were simply a "Prius with a big battery pack". This does indeed improve efficiency and from a long journey perspective that improvement is the same (or maybe even better) than any other approach. In other words it uses an external source of electricity to assist with motive power. However, the Enginer approach does very little from a short journey perspective. If anything it will result in worse economy on short journeys because of the extra pack weight. This is because the stock Prius uses a load based algorithm to determine when to use the ICE - and with a heavier weight to accelerate you're going to be demanding extra load - hence the ICE will run more.

Why do I think the Prius Gen 2 is the BEST vehicle for a PHEV conversion?

1) It already has most of the difficult pieces of the conversion solved. It already has mechanisms for blended use, it already has sub-systems that work in EV only mode. The powertrain is already complete and well proven.

2) As luck would have it Toyota sold a lot of Gen 2's and a lot of people hacked them. See the previous #2 - this means that most of the required protocol is well understood.

3) BTW, it might also be a good candidate for EV only conversion replacing the ICE with a completely separate additional electric traction motor. I'm not sure about that and I prefer the idea that with a PHEV I can cover 100% of my vehicle needs whereas with an EV (other than possibly a high-end Tesla) I can only cover less than 100% (say 80% or 90%).

Why do I think the pEEf approach (and others that follow the same paradigm) is better than the Enginer approach?

1) Because it can seamlessly switch between EV only and blended mode it can be used on the full range of roads and ranges as the stock Prius

2) Because it can operate upwards of 50mph in EV only mode I can use it around town where speed limits are 45mph or less

Why do I favor the pEEf approach over other commercial pEEf-like versions?

1) Ewart brother's system was originally sold with a large NiMH pack and not available as separate components. According to imwoody (above) they now license things separately. I don't know the costs. This is a step in the right direction. However, it came about after I started down my own path.

2) With regard to Ewart I'm also a little leery of supporting a company that appeared to try and quash pEEf's work (see earlier in this thread). This is a large part why I decided to open-source my approach. This point could spawn it's own thread. Happy to discuss it more.

3) Apparently Kiettyyyy also has a pEEf like approach that he has sold/licensed to a third party (Plug-in Supply I think?) Like the Ewarts he appears to be coy with the implementation details to protect a presumed market advantage. Nothing wrong with that - it's his choice. However, the cost is apparently quite high and it's integrated into a system that, IMHO, is overly complex.

So why am I re-creating the pEEf approach?

1) I wish I was simply copying it / using it. However, pEEf has moved his attentions to other things (namely the Leaf - but also I think he did a very slick portable auxillary power supply based on a micro-turbine). The guy is a genius. As well as having lost his attention from the Prius he was also uneasy with sharing the low level details. I'm assuming because of two reasons: (a) possible litigations from commercial vendors & (b) possible liability to folks who tried his approach and failed and claimed damages. I happen to think neither of those scenarios need disuade a well thought out open-source approach. Life without assuming some risk is not much fun...

2) My preferred approach is one which entirely replaces the existing pack but that otherwise re-uses as much of the stock vehicle as possible. I have at least one minor twist on pEEf's design as I intend to use the existing bECU in the final system - this may or may not be a good thing!!!

3) I believe we, as a community, can come up with a complete system at a reasonable cost, with an easy installation process and a high level of end-user satisfaction. How cool would it be if rather than assign gen 2's to the scrap heap they got converted to PHEV's and offered a new lease of life?

4) And of course there's my usual Everest analogy. You don't climb a mountain because you need to nor because it's the only way to the top. You do it because you relish the challenge.

usnavystgc - I know you mean well and I fully agree that you're right that mani (and others) need to realize that a PHEVE conversion is currently an involved and expensive effort with no guarantee of success. However, I think you've ended up throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Your "typical progression" may indeed be typical. However, from my perspective it's simply the wrong progression for two reasons (1) our fundamental disagreement that EV only (with appropriate spoofing) is unusable & (2) the out-of-gas spoof is a very poor solution (and in fact one could make the case that it does more harm than good). In other words just because oog spoof doesn't work doesn't mean all other approaches will fail...

Peace, love and plug-ins!

Now, I really, really, really need to get off my lazy butt and finish my dang conversion!!!

p.s. for the curious: YAPiP - recreating pEEf's approach | PriusChat

 

I would still like to see someone

A) Remove ICE, fuel tank, exhaust system
B) Attach 50KW motor to transaxle in place of ICE (pEEf method of separating ICE ECU on seperate bus to give new motor RPM instruction)
C) Add however many batteries as desired for range

A real rough guesstimation tells me you could fit ~30kwh of cells under the boot floor, in place of the fuel tank, and a little bit under the bonnet. The drivetrain is pretty efficient to begin with so 250wh/mile should still be achievable, should be ~120 miles range. Or less, if you need less. It's up to you!

You don't change the way the hybrid system works at all, still have the standard regen, power split from two sources, nimh managed properly and no extra load on the original motor.

 

Yup, so would I. One benefit of this over converting an 100% ICE car is that you can spec the additional motor for speed rather than off-the-line torque...

 

What a load of rubbish. I do not usually say this about any post. However if someone practices their right to speak rubbish they should be prepared to be criticised. Based on my own experience the last PHEV kit I would recommend to anyone is a Enginer kit.

 

Dont agree about low power in ec mode , just at higher speeds kers say >50 kmh are what slogish

-Tapatalk

 

I am completely prepared to be criticized. I didn't say the Enginer kit was the best, I simply said the Engineer "type of conversion" is the best.
That's the way I see it Lopez however, I completely respect your disagreement with me.

 

So its sluggish above 31mph? What about up a hill at say 35mph (57 kmh)?