Lithium Prototype Test

I have never got that far on new batteries....... and the ecu cuts in at low 40's mph...... Thanks!

 

I believe Gen1 battery is in slight different form, I need to find a donor car in Los Angeles area to measure them up.

 

Or perhaps a C ? When I test drove a C base in 2012 (first year for PiP) I commented to sales guy about a C with a plug. He barked back Never... I still have hopes maybe toyota will get a plug into the corolla one of these years... Just me I guess, it seems no one else is interested in a smaller car with a plug. Whenever I mention a smaller car with a plug here at PC, I usually gets excuses why it'll never happen... lol oh well...

 

Agreed, a 2000 Honda Insight 5mt would be the ideal plug in given its 165wthr/mile 65mph efficiency (from a real world converted insight)

There is a large subset of people that enjoy small cars and manual transmissions. But these people also are cheap and rarely buy cars Let alone new ones
so from a car maker/dealers standpoint are completely irrelevant.

Statistically there is a large disconnect between what overall population (including everyone) likes in cars VRS what actually sell. Oddly more people prefer sedans over crossovers, yet cars don’t sell. A fairly large subset of the population dislikes the appearance of most modern cars as well, case of you get what we got and will like it.

The narrative that no one wants small cars is false But the narrative that new car buyers mostly want land barges is fully accurate.

Unfortunate a bridge to the folks that enjoy small cars can’t be found.
What is sadder is that a simple change in gas prices would completely change car buying habits In a matter of months.
Our reactive culture can’t remember what they had for breakfast, let alone why land barges suck in many ways in most real life situations, even in terms of garage space and maintenance. I need look no further to stupidity in action At my Own little old duplex we have to schedule who is parked where because 3 of the 4 cars (mine fits anywhere) don’t fit in the garage or properly in the side spot resulting in me getting blocked in trying to go to work or someone with a ticket if their car stays on the same side of the street 2 days because they left for vacation but would box everyone in if they tried to park in the driveway

ah well can’t learn the “car buying public” of which I and likely you are not currently included in.

 

Likely @2k1Toaster will welcome a second viable third party battery solution.

 

@bwilson4web can verify but I believe Gen 1 has more modules in a pack.I believe he still has access to his original Gen 1.

 

I gave it away and then the brake pump failed. There are 38 modules in the Gen 1 traction battery pack.

Bob Wilson

 

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see 18s. Maybe 16.3ish?

Also, a question about IR. I don't know the exact method of how the ecu calculates the IR of the modules, but the last I read in this thread was about LI having significantly lower IR that NiMH. The values shown in the photos are some of the highest I've seen. Does anyone know the exact method used for the IR calculation?

Another question is the actual 'used' range of the battery capacity. We know for fact that the Toyota NiMH uses a band of ~42-62% SOC. With the LI curves being different, is it known what range of capacity is being used

My understanding is that most LI devices provide full power and then they don't, once they get to their lower limit. If the car thinks its using 40-60 range, but its really 20-80 due to the different chemistry, it would be nice to know, as that eliminates a lot of the extra reserve capacity at the top and bottom that was designed into the car. Any chance that one of the volunteers will be doing a mountain range test to see how the charging/discharging handle large grades?

@TheChip posted this info:

I just took it for a short drive to Sonic, and was able to get THREE miles of all EV driving, with 40% charge remaining.

This is an example of what I'm asking about. The member making the battery stated it uses 80% of it's capacity. So what does Chip's 40% really mean? If the battery uses an 80% range does that mean the battery has an actual 10% remaining when the engine kicks on to recharge? What would the actual SOC be during a long downhill grade? If the car thinks it has a 38% cushion at the top as an energy absorber, and tries to use it, will it be an issue? I like the idea of LI and have often mulled experimenting with using Gen 4 LI modules in a Gen 2. Just curious about how the indicated SOC compares to the actual SOC and how this could affect overcharging or excessively discharging

 

I read different articles about the 2 types of batteries. The ECU is set up for the NiMH batteries.
To us the lithium batteries, it needs to be reprogramed of the different chemistry and how the
different batteries charge and discharge.
Even for the smaller C and D cell chargers they tell you they are for which battery, and the newer
ones had extra circuitry to charge both. I guess it is able to decide which battery is in the charger.

I guess time will tell. Orrrr, maybe Toyota already knows???

 

Just like they don’t know about the egr clogging issue that leads to blown headgaskets when asked

 

I'd be happy to give it a shot... I've a friend with a Gen1 Prius who would love the opportunity... Would require an additional 5 modules though...

 

I've never seen any indication that there's a genuine NiMH charge algorithm in the electrical signals the car sends to the Prius NiMH battery pack. But I do know that NiMH wastes about 30% of that charge signal to heat and the Lithium modules waste less than 5% to heat so from a temperature perspective things will run more cool and a NiMH charge will be more modest than a true Lithium charge signal due the NiMH heat challenges.

And no doubt Lithium will have no problem handling that, but there still is the question of what if anything the battery management system for Prius NiMH offers that can't be handled by Lithium modules that have been designed to match the existing NiMH power curve?

 

People often get confused by that... The app does a great job at displaying very subtle differences in voltage between modules and that often is misunderstood. I always say: "keep your eye on voltage difference number, that's what's most important."

 

That was the SOC displayed by torque, it cuts charging off at 75% SOC when force charging.

If there is more data you'd like to see, my head unit is hard wired to my OBD2 port. I can collect data if you'd like to take a look.

 

Maybe I'm not asking the question correctly. Perhaps it is best answered by @jacktheripper

It was stated that this battery uses 80% of its capacity band. The OEM battery uses only 20% of it's capacity band.

Does the new battery have an actual SOC swing of 4% for every 1% indicated on Techstream? (or the mfd display)
If the car thinks the new battery is at 62% SOC, is it actually at 90% SOC?
If the car thinks the new battery is at 42% SOC, is it actually at 10% SOC?

If this is the case, then it makes the bar display much closer to actual true SOC. Green=100+% charged and one purple means you're about to be in real trouble.

If so, this would be extremely cool for doing small trips on just battery power, as it should provide a lot more range. Just like the OEM battery would provide some additional range if Toyo opened the usable SOC band to 80%.
It could be uncool if you sit in a parking lot with the AC running, waiting for the wife or something and accidentally discharge too far.
It could be uncool if you're coasting down a big grade and the battery thinks the car is at 65% but it's really at 100% and the car is still hammering the current to it thinking it has room to regen.

 

I have the same question about IR, turns out @AzusaPrius took that scree capture right after the installation, it was still having the IR from old beaten-up pack, LOL

 

Yes. Post 34 makes a lot more sense.

 

excellent, voltage diff is only 0.05v
IR at 9 mohm, 1/3 from your original pack.
looking forward to see the MPG gain.