Poll for your reaction of the Gen 4 - so far.

same here. right now, i use fan on/off, fan speed, a/c, temp, and hv/ev (pip) and they are too close for comfort.

 

Since Prii are HEVs, I assume by "EV" you meant hybrid. In which case, you mean this? 2015 Honda CR-Z Overview - Official Site

 

I think the CR-Z is a great looking car. But from what I gather, they're a bit sluggish.

By "EV" I'm talking about is an Electric Vehicle. The battery technology has matured enough that we can drop the hybridization.

If Toyota wants to continue being a leader in the alternative fuel vehicle area, they need to produce an EV which will knock our socks off. The Nissan Leaf is nice, but it's sluggish. The Volt is pretty good as an extended range EV.

I propose that Toyota needs to fill the gap between the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Roadster. The car I want is a high performance sports EV at a G-Sports price.

 

No it hasn't! It's not even close, in fact.

I can put 8 miles of range *per second* into my 600 mile range Prius, and I can do it at nearly every street corner. A 120kW Tesla Supercharger station, of which there is one in my city of 2.5 million, can add around 8 miles of range *per minute* into its 280 mile range, it's battery weighs two to three times as much as a hybrid power train and costs more than an entire Prius.

Battery energy density needs to improve by a factor of five, costs need to decrease by a factor of 10 (at least), and fast charge rates need to increase by a factor of at least 5 before BEV's are practical for all uses for which we use conventional hybrids. And we need charge station count to increase by a factor of around 100.

 

I agree that could be huge fun, but I've no idea why you think Toyota would be the ones to bring that to market - they obviously hate BEVs (like Lee Jay above, who apparently reads lots of Toyota position papers ). I imagine we're more likely to see that first from GM, VW, or for a premium price BMW. Heck, even Nissan or Mitsubishi are more likely to go for that than our buddies at Toyota.

 

Unfortunately, I think you guys are right. Toyota has no intention of "blowing our socks off." They've invested heavily in the Marai as their bid at being progressive. (In my view the Marai is a dead end, unless someone can invent a way to refuel a hydrogen car at home with solar energy -- and that won't happen.)

Here's a snapshot of my home-brew EV project in progress:


In my EV club, it is somewhat commonplace that you can have a satisfying EV sports car experience with a 100 mile range if you're a person willing to spend around $20K on a car, and invest an awful lot of sweat equity. I would be willing to pay twice the price if I didn't have to make the thing myself!

Take a look a the EV Farrari that the guys at EVWest just completed:


This project uses three motors, and enjoys the benefit of a professional machine shop, but is fundamentally the same off-the-shelf technology that I'm using in my EV project.

As I see it, creating something like this should be a piece of cake for a company like Toyota. But Toyota is obviously not going to tool up for a two-door remix of the Gen-III G-Sport Prius with an EV drivetrain. The Gen-III is history. A sport EV appeals only to a niche market which is not Toyota's MO.

 

I have read no Toyota papers, I do my own analysis.

FYI, I've been doing electric-powered model aircraft since 1986 when it was all NiCd's and brushed cobalt motors, and now it's all Lithium Polymer and "brushless DC" motors (which are really three-phase permanent magnet synchronous motors just like in the Prius). I also have a M.S. in Electrical Engineering specializing in power (electric machines and power electronics), and I've spent my entire career doing research in the energy industry, including energy storage.

Batteries stink, even the best ones.

A hybrid power train, including the fuel tank, has an energy density on the order of 800Wh per kg including the mechanics to drive the car. The best lithium ion batteries are around 250Wh/kg, not including power electronics or drive motors and gears for the car. We don't use all that energy because it harms the batteries. Including that fact and the mass of the drive motors and power electronics, it's really more like 150Wh/kg, against the 800Wh/kg of the hybrid power train.

When you are at a gas pump, the power transfer rate is about 15,000kW. Even after you take account for the losses in the engine, it's closer to 5,000kW. A supercharger station is 90kW or 120kW for the newest and fastest ones. 120kW versus 5,000kW for the hybrid power train.

These are the root problems with electric vehicles. But it all stems from one simple fact - the ratio of peak power to average power in a car is really, really large - on the order of 10 for average cars, 20 or more for fast cars. Batteries are great at meeting peak power demands but lousy at meeting average power demands over time (lousy energy density). Engines are great at meeting the energy demands but lousy at meeting the peak power demands, which is why they are traditionally so large. Put them together, and you have the best of both worlds, which is why hybrids rock.

 

unfortunately, 97% of the motoring public doesn't know this.

 

Thanks for setting me straight on that, since as everyone knows a winking smiley face means "I swear on my life that the preceding is literally true." So good catch.

We're straying way off topic here, and I should make it clear that I love Toyota HSD, which will almost certainly power the car we buy/lease next year. But hybrid and BEV are not an either/or; if you've got two or three cars in the garage, these technologies can complement each other quite well. Toyota refuses to acknowledge this and insists that if a car isn't useful for every possible purpose it's not worth owning, a position that would sound absurd if applied to other products. Lee Jay, you go barreling right down this same rabbit hole:

I don't have any reason to doubt your numbers, all of them very much in line with Toyota's general line of argument. I mean you're right - my BEV might get 110 MPGe, but its "gas tank" weighs 750 lbs., holds less than a gallon of gas, and takes nearly 8 hours to fill. If that offends you or makes you see red, wait until you hear this part - I really couldn't care less.

What you and Toyota are missing is that BEVs can quite usefully replace at least one car in many multi-car households, always charging overnight at home, never leaving town, and rendering all these numbers and calculations irrelevant. If the car is affordable, more fun to drive, cheaper to operate, cheaper to maintain, and meets customer needs, then yeah, people who understand the tech, have a well-matched use case, and know what they want will buy it (I did, anyway). I'm sorry if it doesn't scratch your power-density-transfer-rate itch, but not much - it's not my itch, after all.

Toyota is electing not to develop their own BEV tech, and I think that's a mistake given where we're headed with carbon emissions. Meanwhile, to avoid looking like ostriches with heads well into the sand (hoping all the while that the carbon problem will just go away la la la la), they're pretending to embrace hydrogen fuel cells (H2FC), a pure fraud. H2 may not exactly push your power density buttons, but H2FC does great on the ol' power transfer rate (hook me up and turn on the gold-plated subsidized pump, never mind the power/fuel we consumed to generate this H2!). Does that make it a better idea than just tapping the existing grid to charge those stinking batteries overnight, in our homes, while we sleep?

 

Most people are unwilling to pay for another car to use around town when they have to own one for everything else. That is, unless it's cheap (under $10k new). A few people that think that's a good idea, but 99% won't do it.

Pure fuel cell vehicles are no better. They have the same problem as conventional cars - fuel cells are lousy and peak power but great at energy storage.

This is why the ultimate solution is a modest plug in like 40-60 miles combined with a small fuel cell (like 10kW) as a range extender. This makes 2/3 - 3/4 of all miles traveled done by BEV but eliminates range anxiety and slow fill ups on long trips while simultaneously making the battery 5 times smaller than that in a BEV and the fuel cell 10 times smaller than that in a Mirai. The small amount of H2 needed can be renewable produced.

 

The ultimate solution really depends on your needs and usage, and how obsessive you are. If you're driving really low mileage, it doesn't much matter what you're driving.

With just a regular hybrid Prius, we're tanking up once a month, and it's not rolling into the gas station on fumes fill up: more like just under half full. Never over 25 liters in a month, so maybe $30.

 

That's a really good point - I wonder why I didn't think of it. Oh wait, I did - twice:

So, umm, yeah - I never suggested that a person who needs one car should buy two just to have a limited-range BEV. I really, really did say just the opposite, and I stand by it - most households are multi-car households, and in many markets (excluding mainly the coldest climes until BEV makers figure out they need to offer kerosene heaters) most of those could replace one car with a BEV.

I do agree that EV/REx makes a lot of sense, though I maintain that H2 is a terrible storage medium - low density, inefficient to produce, hard to store, etc. It's particularly ill-suited to the mission you suggest here, sitting little used in vehicle tanks for weeks or months. Viewed in the context of a global system and given the existing fuel distribution infrastructure, a renewable carbon-neutral ICE fuel would almost certainly be a better bet. Unlike "clean coal," those actually exist; in addition to the usual biofuel suspects, heck, the Navy's even looking at a program for nuclear aircraft carriers to generate their own aviation fuel from CO2 and seawater. None of that's happening next week, but neither is the kind of infrastructure that would make H2FCs viable.

H2 may eventually be an important transportation fuel, after a lot of engineering hurdles are cleared. But for now, it's more of a research project than part of any "ultimate solution." Toyota knows it, and that's why a lot of EV enthusiasts are calling BS on the Mirai. Your EV/H2/REx vision is considerably more practical, but it's no reason to dis current BEVs - they're entirely practical, indeed superior, for a wide range of use cases right now, and there is no reason to believe that range of use cases isn't going to expand a lot over the next decade.

 

Even more inefficient to produce than H2.

I'm a multi-car household. I have two drivers and three cars. But all three have to meet the needs of a full-range car since the third is a backup for the other two. I'd need a fourth garage to have a BEV, and I'd only own it if it were dirt cheap. In fact, the only BEV I'd be interested in would be something like a Lit C-1, but they aren't available and cost 4 times too much.

 

But much better at sitting in much cheaper storage tanks for much longer with much lower losses (and for now, at least, fueling a much cheaper system). I thought the idea here was that the fuel would be seldom used, making these attributes more important than its absolute efficiency.

Then don't get a BEV. You just described a very specific use case which I'd say excludes a BEV, and I'd also say is far from universal. I don't want to get into particulars, but we have two drivers with two cars and frankly never even considered that we needed a third car as a "spare," so you must have some rather special requirements.

I do feel obliged to mention that if you have space for it, a BEV as a 4th car wouldn't be out of the question. LEAFs coming off lease (and i-MiEVs if you can find one, which would come a bit closer to your preferred C1) are very definitely dirt cheap, in the ~$10k range you specified.

But I think we've wandered pretty far afield from Gen4 Prius commentary at this point - aside from noting that I hope we see the Gen2 Plug-in sooner rather than later .

 

No, H2 sitting in pressurized tanks has extremely small losses - similar to a Li Ion battery. Most people who only need 40-60 miles daily will end up using more at least twice a month. I'll be using more today, for example. So the sitting and waiting losses are small and so are the storage needs - you only need to store a few kg as a range extender to make a huge impact. An efficient range extender can produce on the order of 20kWh per kg of H2. 3-4kg is sufficient for a long trip when rapid refueling is available. 3kg of H2 would out-last my bladder!

 

Sorry, Priuschat. H2FC is more of a religion than a technology, and I really didn't mean to clutter up this Gen4 discussion in a holy war with a true believer. I shall bow out.

 

I really appreciate that this thread exists as it helped me make a decision. I figured if I could find another Gen II with low mileage I'd be happy for a long time and can wait quite a bit longer. With a bit of luck I found an 09 with 15K on it for a fair price. For me that was a no brainer. Looking forward to additional thoughts on the Gen IV and hoping to hear first hand reports from the first new owners.
Cheers
Wayne

 

I read somewhere there will be many options or levels. I hope so because the previous gens were so thin in options. I sure hope this will be the generation when I hop in to get a new one. I used to drive a low profile a honda civic hatchback until it rusted to the junkyard. I kind of like the 2016 Prius with it being a hatchback and low profile/

 

i hadn't heard that, i hope you're right!

 

Until such time as Prius are assembled in this country, I doubt there will be that many options, except for those installed by the importer. Otherwise, the dealers will order the more heavily loaded vehicles, many of which may contain options many will not want.

I have no idea if you can still special order American cars. The last one I bought new was many years ago, and I ordered it with choices of engines, transmission, rear axle ratio, plus interior options as well as radio options. I don't see the Prius going there.