Convert Prius Prime rear seat to seat three

I took the jack out from under the drivers side rear seat. Then I stuck my arm in there and was surprised at how much empty space there was under the center area.

 

Yeah, my experience is that the middle seat shares the same bottom anchor points as the outer two seats but I was referring to the third (roof) point. If it's there, get the belts/hardware and a local upholstery shop to make a bottom cushion. I've custom DIY several motorcycle seats; it's not rocket science.

 

Sort of. To keep costs down, Toyota chose to use the same floor pan as in the plain hybrid. That pan doesn't allow the traction battery to slip under the rear seats like Hyundai did with the Ioniq PHEV. The space for the hybrid's battery is still there though. So Toyota packed the charger and and battery pack for the PV roof option there.

With the PV roof, a fifth passenger would likely be too heavy for the existing suspension. Without the PV roof, weight might be fine.

Depends on how the charger's shape and how it is oriented. There is space for the hybrid's battery there.

For safety reasons, I would not convert the back seat to a bench if the middle seat belt couldn't be installed. Even then, liability concerns would give me pause.

There is no CHAdeMO charger on the car; just the outlet and some control electronics plus cables to the battery.

For AC charging, the charger is installed in the car. It is more practical to do so and have a portable EVSE for charge any where ability, than having to haul a charger in and out of the car. Level 2 'chargers' are just EVSEs with thicker cables. Now, fast DC chargers(CHAdeMO, CCS, and Supercharger) actually do have the physical charger installed in them, and not the car.

 

So our car has the ability to use chademo chargers but they’re just missing the receptacle and wiring? That’s pretty disappointing as I do 95% of my charging publicly and this would be a welcome addition.

 

Then there are some of us that would like the rear seat removed in favor of extra cargo space.

 

Roof? Uh, what?

The center belt is part of the seat itself, the roof is not involved in any way on the Liftback:

I think they decided that in the US, CHAdeMO isn't widespread enough, and is too expensive, to justify for a market where most buyers have garages, and can charge at home. In Japan, most buyers will be opportunity charging to offset gasoline usage, but otherwise driving it as a gas car, I suspect.

 

That’s how I drive my car. All that they need is to open up the charging receptacle and add some wiring. Shouldn’t jack up the price too significantly.

 

at least make it an option.

 

I'd guess that there's a fair amount of cost in it, though - Nissan charged a fair amount for the CHAdeMO option for the LEAF, anyway - and maybe there's some sort of certification issue, too?

 

yeah, it's probably more expensive than it seems.

 

Thanks for that. Well that means one will need the entire seat not just the bottoms.

 

but also with a lift

 

From about 2019 the Gen. 2 Prius PHEV (aka Prime) models have a 3-person rear bench-seat instead of the 2 bucket seats. (Alas, mine is a 2018 model with the 2 bucket seats .) So presumably the suspension, weight, etc. are not the problem. Perhaps Toyota was just being a bit cautious until they had gathered enough on-road, real-life customer experience before upgrading to the 3-person rear bench-seat?

This presumably means that swapping the rear seat from a 2-person to a 3-person rear bench-seat in a Gen.2 Prius PHEV (aka Prime) isn't a biggie (assuming the floor pan is indeed the same or very similar). Note: If you have a Gen.1 Prius PHEV (aka Prime) things need to be double checked as there are significant differences between Gen.1 and Gen.2 models.

(Btw, the new, 2023 Gen.3 Prius PHEV (aka Prime) also has a 3-person rear bench-seat.)