Value of a PIP with 38 mile one-way commute?

It won't even start while plugged in so you don't need to worry about that..

Not sure of the mileage in your scenario as I'm retired and don't commute regularly.

 

I would expect mid-60's on the low end, and significantly better when she can plug in at work or if she is willing to pay attention to what the car is doing. Under those conditions, 80-100mpg might be attainable.

What's your location? The two things that hurt battery range are cold weather and steep hills.

 

I bought the car because most of my local driving is under 11 miles. Even when out of EV miles, the car does better than the regular Prius due too the larger battery and its ability to regen more. I had to drive in HV for the first 550 miles since I bought it out of state. Since then I haven't used much gas and expect not to have to get any until after the new year.

Your wife would probably do very well with the PIP even at a 38 mile commute. 11 of the miles would be in EV and the rest in HV which would give her a very respectable MPG overall. I got about 55mpg calculated running from NJ to NC in HV mode at 70MPH. The car had no charge on it when I picked it up.

Charging stations seem to have no rhyme or reason to the way people use them Some just plug in and stay that way all day. However, if they're at your wife's place of business, perhaps she could find out who the cars belong to and work out a schedule of charging that meets both of their needs. Who knows but it might be worth looking into.

 

You can't just assume that charging stations at work are free. Mine are $1/hr for the first 5 hours, $5/hr thereafter. It's really on the edge of cost effectiveness for the PiP, and I am there to disconnect it the instant charging completes.

 

the car has a timer, so you can plug in at night, but have it turn on 3 hours before leaving. it doesn't lose charge overnight, but it's not a good idea to leave it fully charged everyday. for a similar price to a regular prius, you get a few upgrades, plus lion battery which is more efficient. however, you don't get a spare tyre because the battery is there. when i drive to my fathers every week, it's around 70-80 miles and i only charge when leaving home. i usually get around 90 mpg, this is not considering the electrical use which costs around .50 at .16/ kwh. all the best!

 

This was from the trip back home with a full charge at in-law.

It was an hour and 12 mins drive covering 49.1 miles. We used heater when ICE was used.

0.585 gallons burned at the rate of about an ounce per min.

Weather is getting cold. Air in tire was 37 psi front / 35 back (for comfort) before the temp dropped.

I love this car!

 

I have a 26-mile commute to work that is mostly freeway driving. From my home to the freeway is about 3-miles, 22-miles on freeway (@65-75mph), and then 1-mile from freeway to work.

Drove a total of 56-miles today with 83 MPGe* - if I did the calculation correctly. PIP was fully charged in the morning (2:22 @120V) and fully charged at work (1:31 @240V). Luckily, the parking garage at work has 12 EV spots (w/ 4-hour limit) and to date I have always found open spots. One of the first days I had the PIP I did not charge at work and obtained 49.0 MPG (calculated by entune app, did not have numbers saved for that trip).

Of course, living in CA one of the main reasons I purchased the PIP was for HOV-access.

*MPGe=(EV miles + HV miles)/((HV gallons+0.5) + ((EV kWh/0.85)/33.7))

 

$1.50/ charge is equal to $6.00/gallon gas approximately. .15/kwh equals $2.00/gallon.

 

With my 53 mile one way trip, I'm averaging 82 mpg. Look at my signature pic and you will see 105 mpg was my best effort for my commute. If I forget to charge or the spot at work is taken I get 65 mpg. I set the timer to finish charging right before I leave in the morning. I can pretty much guarantee you won't be paying $0.15 per kWh. That's how much I pay for electricity. But remember, the PiP takes a little over 3 kWh per charge. Multiply by 30 days is 100 kWh and you're in the $0.30 tier rates. That's more expensive than gasoline. I had to switch to TOU plans for it to make sense.

 

Can't believe no one has suggested a Volt yet. The amount of miles daily make it a better candidate then the PiP IMO.

 

Car has a built in timer. You don't need to buy one.

Very little value in cutting charge time in half. You definitely won't see a return on that money.

There is strategy when and how to use your EV miles. Takes some learning but someone can just drive it and do well, too.

Why again are you not considering a Volt?

 

Have you ever sat in the back of one? It's easy to see on paper that the legroom is much smaller than Prius. But it isn't until you actually get in that you realize the head placement for adults is so different. It certainly surprised me.

My 62-mile drive yesterday with only a single charge resulted in an average of 76 MPG.

My vacation trips (100's of miles without recharging) this summer using A/C carrying lots of cargo inside and 2 bikes on back averaged upper 40's.

My clean-up effort at mom's these past 2 weekends resulted in hauling 3 large loads of junk.

Prius PHV is more competitive that it initially seems...

 

A PiP charges at a little over 2 kW at 240v. At $1 an hour fee it can be twice as expensive to drive in EV than to just drive on gas at 50mpg with $3.75 a gallon gas. At 30 kWh or so for 100 miles that would be around $15. 100 miles on gas would be about 2 gallons at $3.75 for a total of $7.50.

I believe Blink charging stations round up partial hours so if a Prius took 1.5 hours for a full charge then Blink would bill that as 2 hours. By contrast, ChargePoint stations will pro-rate to the nearest minute so 1.5 hours is billed as 1.5 hours, not 2 hours like Blink.

 

The primary value of the 220v charging stations is convenience and a quicker charge. There is a slight energy savings in the efficiency of charging at 220v vs. 120, but it's tiny and not worth considering. Note that there is a 30% federal government tax rebate towards the cost of installing a home charger, and your local area may have additional incentive.

Realistically the battery charges very quickly to about 80% and then slows way down. When I use one of the few public 220v chargers in my area it seems to give me about 9 miles of range in 50 minutes or so of charge. So it's well worth plugging in even just for a short while.

I also agree that you should consider the Volt as it's a nicer car in many ways and she could potentially do her entire round-trip commute all electric.

One thing to note with the PIP is it's not really designed to be an EV. There are all sorts of ways to trigger the gas engine. It will still get great mileage, but for someone who really wants the EV experience, there might be better options.

 

I have a 31 mile one way commute. It's all uphill from Long Beach. I get 10 miles EV heading up 21 miles HV. Sometimes I grab coffee on the way to work and charge for an hour and get 20 miles EV. The return trip is downhill so it is reversed – 20 miles EV and 10 miles HV. I charge at work.

I average about 110 mpg on my commute (2 days a week). Note... I'm very mindful of charging as often as possible. What's interesting is I visit new places I would never visit prior, because I take my iPad with me and sit and drink a cup of coffee and grab a piece of pie at random places to get a charge. Plugshare is a great app BTW to find these random places.