Will Toyota offer upgrades when its solid state comes out?

toyota has always had the philosophy of building cars that are upgradeable in every conceivable way, and i expect no less in this instance.

just look at how they built their infotainment system in the last few years as an example. i foresee the older primes getting new batteries that fir underthe hatch floor and provide more range than the current battery.

 

I doubt it. Have they been offering lithium ion upgrade packs to Gen3 Prius and Prius Plug-in owners? They've had it in the Prius and Prius Prime since 2016.

Of course they have been talking about offering a refurbishing type service in Europe one day where they take your old car and work on bringing it back to like new condition. So not totally out of the realm of possibility

 

Not a chance. Unless they are doing it for a huge profit margin, such that buying a new model becomes a more reasonable solution.

 

I agree with Sal. It will come most likely with the introduction of the Gen 5 Prius and with the hybrid only, not the Prime, due to the cost of the solid state lithium packs. Toyota does upgrades in careful small increments, not bold widespread and risky moves.

 

In a new model year maybe. Retrofitting existing Primes? Not a snowball’s chance in …

 

Look how they upgraded all the older Primes to Apple CarPlay.

 

Once they have a better battery, each one they sell in a complete car helps earn them a whole car's worth of profit.

Each one they sell as a retrofit? hmm. They could raise the price to help compensate, but it's likely already pricey.

What good would it do you to spend $10k on an upgrade battery for a car that (at the time of upgrade) might only be worth $12k? Crash it the next day and you lose big-time. I made the $10k number up, but that isn't much higher than the actual replacement value of the existing battery.

Maybe someday somebody will write loans on auto batteries separate from the car...

 

Look how the PiP's nickel metal hydride pack is upgradable to the Prime's lithium pack.
. . . . . . oops, never mind

.

 

Since there are so many of these cars out there, the third party market would probably offer this upgrade in 5 to 8 years after it's introduction. That's how long it took for people to start rebuilding battery packs and offering it as an option to a new replacement. This would take some reverse engineering from crashed vehicles and some experimenting. Our charging ECU will probably need to be replaced and it would probably remove 150 lbs from the trunk; if it becomes feasible.

Sal is right; Why would Toyota "gut" sales of their new cars - unless the math works. Manufacturers sell product and to a small extent restricted OEM parts - depending on how their sub-contractor's contract are structured. They see no profit from maintenance or repairs, that's a local dealership thing.

 

pip is lithium

 

there will never be a $10,000. aftermarket upgrade for a $10,000. prime.

but the good news is that someone else will happily drive your old prime when you upgrade to whatever

 

My mistake! The whole thing?
I must have been remembering the blue test mules that some of us got to play with for a few days
.

 

yes, the mules were nimh. the pip is one lithium battery, except for the 12v.

but you are correct, no upgrades available size wise, or tech wise.

 

Yes, there was a lot of confusion about the battery on the PiP (I had one). The prototypes had a separate battery for EV in addition to the small NiMH battery for HV. As I recall, regeneration did not feed into the EV battery; wall charging was the only way to put electrons into the EV battery. People read the reviews of the prototype, not realizing that the production model had only the one lithium traction battery, which gave us a wonderful ~10 miles/charge.

 

not enough for most, but the perfect car for me. about 60k ev and 20k hv, with all the hv being used while i was still working, and something less post retirement/pre covid. if covid ever lets up, i may pick up a little more hv now and then.
if i were to buy a prime, the engine would be an anchor, and the battery would be half an anchor.

 

One could hope that PHEV powertrains become common and variable enough that one could eventually select the battery capacity like a trim level.

Once we hit that point I think the idea of an aftermarket range-change looks a lot more realistic.

 

i suspect we've crossed the phev bridge, as far as enough popularity to offer options or mods, and are headed for bev's. but who knows? it is so difficult to see where we are going with transportation fuels in the current environment.

 

As an aside, what about LIFePO4 batts? Wouldn't those be an improvement over LI-Ion? Maybe some reason not to?