EMF radiation in Prius 2

nothing but a lot of guesswork. people claim to have tested it, but nothing scientific. and others will say, oh, you didn't do it properly. who really knows? have you contacted toyota or nhtsa?

 

There are numerous posts about it. If you want to believe it, whatever. It has been proven that the Prius has lower radiated emissions than many other gas-only vehicles.

 

agreed. but it's finding the proof that proves difficult.

 

The previous consensus here was that Gen2 and Gen3 Prii fell within the middle of the spread of traditional non-hybrid cars. I don't recall seeing anything about Gen4 testing.

 

I have a meter. What would you like measured?

 

Is that why my bald spot is getting bigger?!

 

Took the meter out to the car and took some measurements. Basically, I'm not picking up anything more than ambient EMF in this car or with my VW diesel. Having said this if I use the cell phone the EMF goes through the roof. As best I can tell if one is concerned about EMF the best advice is to abstain from using wireless communications. While I haven't checked it, I would avoid using bluetooth for streaming music, instead using the USB cable.

 

Basic information that may help some understand this subject:

Electric & Magnetic Fields

 

Ok. I measure nothing from the key.

Ok. I have a Cornet ED78 fyi. Took a bunch of measurements and what I found is that car us far less active EMF than my house. While I could detect very slight increases in EMF when I pushed a button on the key the levels throughout the car stayed under .06mw/m2 or -40dBm....as low as the meter will go. I didn't fire up the gas engine, but I did drive the car using MG2 and the results were the same.

Then I tried streaming music from the iPhone 6s and the difference was substantial, now getting levels up to 1.8 mw (the yellow zone) depending on how close the meter was to the phone. In fairness, the emf levels a foot away from the phone dropped way off, but were still substantial higher than without the bluetooth connection.

Then there's the cell phone....180mw/m2.

As best I can tell the car is quite clean....very clean, but anything to do with the cell phone is to be avoided if one is concerned with EMF. As I said before, best to use the USB cable to stream music and to avoid using the cell phone in the car.

 

Would a DIESEL, with no high-voltage ignition leads, spark plugs etc have less than a PETROL (gasoline) engine. Have you tried it around a (non-Prius) petrol engine?

When reading about Prius quite a while ago, I read somewhere that there was more likely EMF from a petrol engine than from a Prius. I can't remember the details, but wonder if it was because the Prius ICE only runs part of the time?

 

Reading up on the subject from reputable sources will ease your worrys. (read about non-ionizing radiation vs ionizing)

The large voltages in a Prius are mostly DC. AC, especially very high frequency AC, is where the EMF is large. AC in the Prius is under the hood, beyond the firewall.

In cars, in general, the largest (although tiny) sources of EMF in the cabin are ventilation fans (high speeds equals high frequency AC) the Prius has an extra fan venting the Battery, but it runs less often than the one in the dash for people.

I hope this helps.

 

Hmmm... Let me pull out my cell phone while I'm in the car and search for a detector ap...

 

Please don't get me wrong with my joke up there. My daughter is EXTREMELY sensitive to EMF radiation.

 

I wish EMI testing was as easy as described as taking "the meter" out to the vehicle and getting "the value". It would be nice to replace the 252 pages of MIL-STD-461E with a single sheet.

Since one of my routine jobs is performing official testing of aircraft EMI and EMC performance, I always get confused by these "measure EMF" discussions. Of the hundreds of different possible measurements of every permutation of what Maxwell's equation allow, which ones are being talked about? A good EMI test facility has about 20 different types of test equipment and an equal assortment of antennas to cover frequencies from DC to many GHz.

If the concern is about exposing yourself to EMF of most common sorts, stop talking about cars and turn off the cell phone smashed up against your head. Those devices are explicitly designed to blast RF radiation through whatever obstacles are blocking the path, including the brain of the user.

 

Well put FL

 

Exactly. It's patently obvious in measuring radiation that if you are concerned there is absolutely no question that not using devices that broadcast RF energy is your best bet. The results of my testing was very clear....the car is pretty clean (probably cleaner than the average house) while bluetooth and cell phones are bad news.

 

Depending on the sensitivity of the Gauss meter, you'll probably get more of a reading from a ghost than the Prius.