Does the Prius have a transmission?

You are correct, the initial cost of the car must be a factor in $/Mile calculations.
I don't know how to do that.
So for now I use only energy costs for $/Mile, and keep the vehicle, maintenance, tax, insurance, depreciation costs separate.

Yes, "Toyota worked extremely (?) hard", 15 + years ago.
However,, Technology marches on...

 

<blockquote>I don't know how to do that.</blockquote>

Cost of car / Miles driven.

<blockquote>However,,[pic] Technology marches on...</blockquote>

But does it *improve*? That is the pertinent question.

 

It has a single speed transmission that blends gas and electricity to create CVT effect, hence eCVT.

Volt has 3 clutches so it'll shift gears, hence multi-speed transmission.

 

Nope, it shifts modes, not gears.
The planetary gears are just like the eCVT in the Prius, just much more complicated with the clutches allowing changes in modes.
1 or 2 motor modes and series or parallel hybrid modes.
The clutches never slip, speeds are matched at engagement or disengagement.
Both transaxles are probably produced under the same roof.

This 15 year newer technology allowed me to go +10k miles in EV mode.
That's ~70% off Gas prices. Actually less, I get to plug in at work.
Full power available and full climate control functions. Months without visiting a gas station.
It is a fun, fast EV for about 40 miles,, then it turns into a - - - Prius.

 

Volt depleted efficiency is not the same. Scores of owners have recently sounded off about that.

The claim that Prius has not been upgraded at all for the last 15 years and implying Volt is entirely new and does not contain any technology advancements acquired from EV1 or Two-Mode is meritless. Please stop.

 

GEN-I = initial design & implementation (good).
GEN-II = upgraded design & implementation (better).
GEN-III = upgraded, upgraded design & implementation (best).
GEN-IV = evolved design & implementation (bestest).

 

Toyota Hybrids newer than the Gen 2 Prius use an upgraded HSD with two Planetary gearsets to protect against over reving M/G1. It is not true that what is being used today is 15 years old.

This is a good explanation of the difference. If you are impatient, he goes into detail at about 13 minutes in to about 17:30 minutes, but I consider it all time well spent .

 

john17,
Please stop defending old tech.
Sure, they added a second planetary set and use a gear instead of a chain to the final drive. Fantastic.
It can do a trick and act like an EV for 6-11 miles,,, slowly, in nice weather. Fantastic.

The future marches on. You can dig in your heals all you want. Lots PiP owners are leaving and buying a Volt.

 

Some of us don't care about 'new tech'. We want *Better* tech.

 

The notion that more EV power / range means more advanced does not fly here, Bill. A car with two power sources needs to be advanced in both of them.

A balanced plugin car that is lowest in emission is what PiP is all about. Obviously, you are unable to appreciate PiP's design goals but Volt's goals better align yours.

So, why post on PriusChat about how outdated (you THINK) the technology is? I suggest you reassess your position.

 

Ironically, the antagonist position is to claim Prius was cobbled together in haste, a direct response from Toyota as a result of Volt. In reality, it was the opposite. Toyota already offered a refined hybrid system and was able to augment it with a plug by basically just swapping out the battery-pack and adding a charger & plug. The platform already supported that next step forward into the mainstream. GM was scrambling to keep from being left behind, so they squeezed in as much battery as possible, connecting it to an upgrade of the Two-Mode system.

That's why the topic of "transmission" is brought up so often. We all know GM didn't start from scratch. That wouldn't make sense. Trouble was, the expertise they had acquired was from an expensive system which didn't deliver as high efficiency as needed. But in the short term, adding enough battery-capacity to compensate for that could hold them over in the meantime.

Problem was, it trapped them into a non-competitive design. Every time the idea of a reduced-capacity model came up, there were highly emotional (and sometimes hostile) responses... since depleted efficiency and reduced power were such obvious shortcomings.

To make matters worse, there was little doubt Toyota's plug-in design was profitable. Though priced a little out of reach for the target market, the cost-reduction was achievable within the current generation. For GM, there was no chance of reaching profit until the next... which is how the "old" claims came about. The effort to portray Toyota's design as "outdated" rather than acknowledge it had matured for the masses was rather desperate, but quite common.

The idea of getting any type of recognition that Prius offers a nice balance of priorities is still too much to bare. Watch the type of reply we get to this. Avoiding the topic of business need for the sake of winning an argument is pretty much inevitable... here anyway. Elsewhere, we do see some GM supporters in favor of a competitive model turning on some current Volt owners.

 

One of the "mode" (activated by clutch) lowers the rpm of MGb. That's what we called changing gear ratio or shifting.

 

You forgot about the cost cutting in gen3. To some taxi drivers, apparently gen2 is the "bestest."

 

Haw about Edmunds.com's True Cost to Own?
Volt: $34,597 2013 Chevrolet Volt 0-cyl. Hybrid 1-speed Direct Drive True Cost to Own
Prius: $40,339 2013 Toyota Prius 1.8L 4-cyl. Hybrid CVT Automatic True Cost to Own
Volt wins due to the tax credit.

I don't see how technology is better/newer in Volt, just a bigger lithium battery. Hardly new tech.

 

And it still has a belt.

 

I agree, and for that matter, when Toyota launched the Gen 3, they mentioned more than once the total amount of changes to the components in the Gen 3. I think they said over 90% of the hybrid components had been redesigned. Most to be lighter or smaller.- This IS evolution.

Lighter and smaller in the Gen 3 Prius...leads to lighter and smaller Prius, in Prius c.

I don't think it's very valid to point to HSD and Prius as a system that hasn't evolved. A better example of a slow to improve or change system would be Honda and IMA.

In the automotive industry, it's a fine line between "If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It" and " It's Time to Move Forward". I think Toyota walks that line well, always with an eye to marketability.

The Toyota Prius may no longer (if it ever was) be the most cutting edge example of technology creating automotive efficiency. BUT...I applaud Toyota for creating an "alternative" automobile that they can and do sell in the mass quantities they do sell the Prius in...

When Chevy has a "Volt" family of vehicles? And I can go buy a brand new Volt, for less than $23,000, and Chevy is celebrating selling over 5 million of them...then I'll say their technology wins. Until then? Toyota has created a product that balances marketability, cost, and technology better than almost all the competition.

Could Toyota start from scratch or make The Prius into something else? Sure, but I doubt it could be created in the huge numbers Prius are created, and I doubt the end product could be easily purchased at numerous dealerships for less than $23,000.

Some credit needs to be payed to Toyota for not only advancing and evolving "hybrids" but also making that hybrid into an extremely popular vehicle available to the masses.

Your use of the term mode here means almost nothing. "Mode" is a vague, generic term. What is it doing when it shifts "modes"?

When I shifted from 2nd to 3rd in my 1992 Nissan Pick-up, I could of announced I was going from 2nd "mode" into 3rd "mode" but what was happening was that I was shifting gears.

 

Yes, I would certainly think you could find "another" forum for that crap................

 

Gen2 cut the cost from Gen1 also. They reduced the number of battery modules from 38 to 28.

 

No heat recycling from the exhaust either. The engine is not even Atkinson cycle. Engine torque split to wheel is about 33% (when it is clutched in) where 72% of PiP engine torque made it to the wheels.

These are some of the things that an EV blind wouldn't see. All they see if EV range and how fast they can go without starting the engine.

 

Toyota " transaxle ", is a transmission; just a different kind of transmission.