EV experiences

Yep. What else did you think I meant by "efficiency just isn't conducive to generating waste heat, I guess"?

 

My wife and I are fine with the heated electric seats. We don't bother using the inefficient cabin air heater, unless the windows fog up, due to inability (rain,etc) to open window.

I found it widely depends on the speed I am driving with the engine on. At highway speed, the cabin heater comes on very fast. In slow city driving, the engine is rarely running and when it does, at low load so the cabin heater is slow. Warming up the engine takes gasoline the size of two eggs. You won't get much heat from that amount of gas.

 

As for my EV experience, I am very satisfied with the PiP. PiP is covering my frequent short trips in EV mode. EV power is more than enough for acceleration and keeping up with traffic in NYC.

I charge every other day (in weekdays) because my daily driving is so short and I want to keep the SOC low to extend the battery life.

It is more efficient than my old 2006 Prius in HV gas mode. The gas engine revs lower, so it is quieter as well.

I did a valet parking last weekend. While waiting to get my PiP back, I'll hear gas engine revving before cars coming out around the corner. These guys drive pretty hard because there was a long line waiting. My wife and I could tell the upcoming car isn't ours because we heard the gas engine. When my PiP came out, it was silence (just the noise maker barely) and the valet driver did not trigger the gas engine.

 

Yeah, it has a conventional heat exchanger that uses engine coolant to heat air as it passes over it's radiator fins. Same as most water cooled ICE cars.
Point is- my 2003 CR-V gets toasty warm in the first few min of driving, even with the PIP's ICE running as soon as I pull out of my driveway on cold mornings- the heat is very slow to come up. The car I had before that- Nissan Pathfinder had average cabin heat, our Jeep Cherokee had adequate heat as does our Expedition. Now that I've gone thru Dec, Jan and Feb with the PIP- I'd rate it's cabin heat as poor. Same with it's front windshield defroster- compared with my other late 90's and later built cars- it's sub-par.

 

. When they first came out with the Datsun, the designers could not understand why Americans could not bring thier battery inside the house overnight to eliminate Winter battery problems. Kind of interesting.

 

My other car, actualy the wife's, starts blowing warm air before I get to the end of the court. A very short block. It's incredible! A Honda Civic.

 

It is pathetic, in fact the whole HVAC is pathetic as was Gen II, but I suppose Toyotas aim was high mpgs and this is the way they did it. So I will live with it and be happy with my high MPGs. Last trip was 1400 miles at an average of 93 MPG.

 

Minor inconveniences aside- it was an excellent 1/2 ton small pickup- the beginning of a legend.

 

I wonder how the Volt and Leaf handle the cold. Maybe some owners could report in. I know it is probably blasphemy...but even in a pure EV it might make sense to have a tiny gas tank or tiny propane tank to use for heat in extremely cold. A solution might be one of those small propane tanks used for soldering pipes. It would be interesting to compare how many kwh it would take for an electric heater to provide as many BTUs as you could out of one of those and through a heat exchanger.

Mike

 

Are you using a dashboard camera? How did you tape that?

 

Are you using a dashboard camera? How did you tape that?

 

Considering TFS has rebates of $5,300 on 2012 PiPs still in stock (along with a money factor of 0.00001) , that a considerable discount one does not find on a non-PiP Prius.

 

TFS is offering a 10k rebate plus you get federal and state tax breaks on the RAV 4 EV

 

$10k rebates on the PiP or the RAV 4 EV? Which states? NE area is half that - still enough to bring it down below price of non-PiP Prius.

 

California only. That is for the new RAV 4 EV only.toyota only made 2,000 cars joint effort with Tesla.

$10,000 factory cash! Good Thur March 4th 2013. | PriusChat

 

Nice job. Felt like I was in the car.

 

The Chevy s10 EV had a fuel tank used just for heat.