6 mile (10 km) Lithium Ion battery in Non-Plug-in?

If it has that much range, it should have a 120V plug. No Level 2 charging, but that much range can be put in by a 120V cord in an hour or so. Maybe they could call it a "partial plug-in" or "light plug-in". It would work for me since my kids' school is like 1 1/2 miles round trip, and my local Costco, Target and hobby store (I go there a lot) are about 2 miles round trip.

 

from what I read one of the reasons going to double wishbone rear is to free space for the battery under the seat. Somewhat similar packaging to Aqua. Lower CG, more trunk space, everyone wins, right?

 

wouldn't make any sense worldwide, unless there is no cost to toyota.

 

If it is that capacity and there is no plug, they might choose to only charge from the engine up to a certain limit (say 60%) and leave part of the capacity always reserved for regen. charging only. That should remove the efficiency problem. Power mode might conceivably override this limit so that more battery power could regularly be available for sportier performance.

 

charging the battery from the ice is never efficient. and selling a 4 1/2 mile battery to flatlanders is a waste of someones money. unless...

 

My guess is that so long as such a mode could not be set as default but had to be specifically selected by the driver after each restart, it would not be a factor in the EPA ratings.

Personally I wouldn't expect to use it much if at all but a quick 0-60mph time seems to be a big deal to a lot of owners.

 

One of the charts in those videos says (I think) that specific battery power is up 60%. If that translation is right, that's quite a lot. Specific power is Watts / kg.

 

Low speed EV improves MPG at the end of a trip because the hit for running the ICE more to charge ups doesn't occur until the next trip. Delaying warm up until you get to the highway means it occurs during a period of higher demand, or to put it another way, you will be accelerating to higher speeds on a cold engine and with little buffer in the battery. Letting the ICE warm up before getting to the highway means that it will be at its efficient operating temperature and the battery will have likely gained some charge to provide more assist under acceleration. Which is how the system saves fuel.

Now, if you didn't want the engine turning on in order to not disturb your family or neighbors in the morning, that is actually an use Toyota intended for EV mode on the gen2.

I assume this is all in reference to the plug in Prius. The issue isn't weight of the battery, but size, which will be larger than expected because of the protection circuitry. A higher capacity Li-ion may still only be the size of the gen3 NiMH, but the gen4 is sticking the Li-ion in a smaller space than the gen3 had for the battery.

It just occurred to me that we are working on the assumption that this is an on demand EV mode. The Hyundai system automatically will pulse and glide while cruising. The ICE runs at a higher than needed to maintain speed, but more efficient, load until the battery is full, then it turns off, and lets the motor keep speed until the charge is low. If the the EV range mentioned in the video is in conjunction to such an operation in the new Prius, the 6 miles might be possible based on the cruise speed. Maintaining speed takes less energy than accelerating up to even a low speed.

 

Yes, it could be a way to boost MPG on the EPA required driving conditions.

 

From the pictures posted by the Prius Chat guys, the Lithium battery isn't really much larger than the GIII NiMH. It's not as deep, but wider. The placement under the rear seat is interesting. Note that the Prius C also puts -both- batteries under the rear seat. So nothing really new about the location. We don't know yet how the option packages will work, but it is -possible- you could have a Lithium battery AND a spare. I doubt the larger capacity Lithium battery is any heavier than the NiMH one. They are usually at least half the weight in equivalent capacity.

The Prius C gets the energy absorbing foam in the rear "hatch area" (such as it is), just as the G4 does when it doesn't have a spare. At least in the "prototypes". There still could be changes in this. I don't know if they have done the crash testing yet. Probably on computers, but not sure if they have destroyed real cars yet. I'm guessing there was a limited production run of cars for show and testing. We got to see the "survivors"?

 

Hate to say, I've said that

 

bigger the battery, bigger the maximum output... still, 4-5 miles does not make sense at all since there are not enough benefits that we know about to essentially double the battery capacity.

Merged

thats 55kg less than before - not bad, it was never a heavy vehicle to start with.

 

Wait a minute... all wheel drive? Maybe dual electric motors? Could this possible mean 2 trans axle regen?

 

I would be interested in the AWD if Regen benefits, a performance mode using all 4. Otherwise, automatic AWD would not be that useful here in Central Florida.

 

Sounds like much ado about nothing, just a generational improvement.

My 2001 Classic Prius routinely delivered 3 miles of EV. Good old stealth-mode at 30 mph didn't have any trouble keeping the engine off on that route. So, seeing anincrease to 4-5 miles isn't a big deal. In fact, that's somewhat of an expectation knowing how far software, motors, and batteries have advanced.

 

i couldn't get more than a mile or so out of my '04 and '08, on flat ground at 10 mph.