Featured Gen 5 Prius now further delayed to the model year 2024

A couple years ago I had -32F on my volts dash readout, it was plugged in and ran erdtt
A real -40F only happens about once a decade here but it still happens occasionally, the Prius unlike the Volt doesn’t appear to mention or have documented it’s different modes of operation at different temperatures, I have to imagine a battery too cold could occur with lithium where the car couldn’t start.

Parked at work all day I got an instant engine start with a blanked out battery, no charge or discharge activity but drove sounding like a gas CVT.

 

Neither nimh or lion should be charged bellow 0. Both can provide power at much lower temperatures.

I think in toyota's case they decided to go with a battery with much lower total energy battery energy with lion, because of the usable energy is the same and usable power at normal operating temperatures is higher. This is because the lion is dependable in a bigger range of soc and in normal operating temperatures than toyota's nimh battery.

When they get cold though available power falls off. They do have lion batteries that have significant power at -40, but those have different chemistries than toyota is using. My guess is at -40 neither battery can deliver much power, and the engine is providing all the power until they warm up. The nimh may warm up faster though ;-)

Lithium iron phosphate like the cold even less, and require more heating, but these car much less expensive batteries. It likely is the way to go to drop prices on hybrids. How many days do people drive a hybrid in -40?

 

I wonder what the residents of Minot, Grand Forks, Great Falls, Calgary, and Edmonton think of being dismissed as not "populations of any kind of density." All of them went below -20F this winter.

I remember numerous -20Fs in my youth and very early adulthood, having to start an old beater car to get to school (fortunately, it started easier in very dry sub-zero conditions than in very damp near-freezing conditions) but those seem to have become scarce the past several decades. (Climate change? ) I never experienced anything significantly below -20 there, but just barely missed -37 at a later holiday visit, arriving just as the overnight 'rose' to -20.

Yes, numerous gassers do have difficulties, but it is still considered a malfunction. With winter fuel, a decent battery, and no water excess in the tank and fuel lines, gassers should start. Warm weather diesel drivers may be stranded, but cold climate diesel folks know what to do to keep going.

He wrote -40F, not -50F. Edmonton was colder than that a couple times this past winter.

My only -40F experience was on a Montana ski trip, long ago at Big Sky. The resort closed a bit above -20. But we I did ski there on a -12 F day this year - maybe the same day I caught Covid? At least the cold sharply reduced the morning crowd, giving us more first-tracks powder runs.

The standard temperature range for automotive-grade components, electrical and otherwise, goes down to -40F, for very good reason. Climate change may eventually allow relaxation on the cold side of the standards, but not yet.

 

It is a low power AWD system designed to help out at low speeds. In Japan, they don't have road salt, so this is more important when starting from a stop.

The NiMH is a larger pack that is only discharged to 40% in normal operation. So there is a larger reserve buffer to draw upon when the battery starts losing performance to cold. Or Toyota used it to add more weight to the rear. They say performs better in the cold, but they also said L-ion wasn't ready for cars.

 

I think they would be just fine with it, it isn’t a value judgement, it is pure numbers.
Edmonton has a population density of about 460/sq mile.
Minneapolis has a population density of about 2600.

 

Calgary is denser than Minneapolis at 3400.

But I suspect he really meant population sizes, not areal densities. Edmonton is almost a million, Calgary is well over a million.

The other three are all in the 50k class. Where I came from, even that counts as 'big city'.

 

Regions that can expect to see -30 to -40 degrees probably see car owners doing more to winterize an ice car than an engine block heater. Heaters for the starter battery and other components isn't unheard of.

Canadian and Alaskan Prius Primes have an extender battery warming function. Other plug ins doing similar shouldn't be a surprise. I once came heard of a study where the researchers directly installed heating wires within Li-ion cells. Once fully developed, such could be a low cost, more efficient way of winterizing plug ins for colder climates.

 

Here in Southern Ontario, our (relatively mild for Canada) winters typically get down to about -25C to -30C (-20F = -29C) a couple times per winter; and my wife and I have been driving a PiP and a Leaf for 6 years and never had an issue either car starting or running. The only obvious challenge is the hit on EV range, with the Leaf in particular since that is the only fuel source. Interestingly, this winter the Leaf did something new and notified by SMS that “the heat was coming on to warm the battery, please plug in”, which is a message we had never seen before; however we did have the software updated last summer, so I am sure it is related. Otherwise, we,have the car configured to send SMS when charging is completed, or interrupted,

Regarding extreme cold, I know in Northern Canada such as Northwest Territories and Yukon often reach -40 for extended periods, and at that temperature, it doesn’t matter C or F, lol. Around there, everyone uses block heaters, and people generally keep their ICE vehicle either running or plugged in at all times, otherwise the car won’t start the next day… no idea how popular HV or PHEVs are up there these days. I highly doubt you would find any EVs.

But I digress… perhaps we can get this thread back on topic.

 

I am not sure about your location, but there are a number of EVs above the arctic circle.
https://electrek.co/2020/02/11/tesla-model-3-arctic-circle-winter/

 

Good find. Reading back, I meant to say “many EVs”, not “any”. It was late, lol…

Also to clarify, I am not saying EVs wouldn’t function in that climate, more so that there is not much infrastructure in sparsely populated areas like that, which create a different barrier.

 

you must have lost a bet

Jeez - isn't that like 100 miles from the Arctic Ocean? would love to hear the back story
.

 

Latest from bestcarweb is the gen 5 Prius will debut next Spring in Japan, a few months later than previous speculation, so probably Fall 23 here. Nothing else new.

 

That’s too bad… do you have a link?

I guess that would mean 2023 would be another carryover, and the redesign will be the 2024?

It would be disappointing since the new Infotainment system seems to be making it into several 2023 models (but highly doubtful with Prius unless there is a redesign), but in usual (recent) fashion, Prius will probably be an oversight.

Would be a shame if true (about the delay), as a refreshed Prius would be killer with the gas prices these days…

 

Here is the link. Use Google translate. I didn't post it initially because there isn't much new. The rendering is much like what they did before.

新型プリウス掴んだ!!! トヨタのエースが革新的変化で2023年春登場 - 自動車情報誌「ベストカー」

 

Looking forward to seeing the new Prius especially the new Prius Prime.

Current gas prices make this car one of the most desirable vehicles you could own right now.

Being able to go 60 miles on a gallon of gas is tremendous asset right now.

 

Thanks… agree on all counts. For a tech car, the PP is certainly getting long in the tooth, however I feel the it is aging well regardless, and if the delay means we get new battery tech, then that is certainly a nice trade off!

In fact, I think I actually still prefer the current look to those renderings, but will reserve judgement until product comes out. I hope they ditch those dumb rear door handles, like the CH-R. Just leave them where they are.

Also, agree 100% about gas prices… this should certainly drive a lot of people to ultra-efficient vehicles again like Prius. It is certainly putting the pain on people driving unnecessary oversized vehicles… will be interesting to see how these fuel prices impact the domestic mfr’s who have mostly all dropped car models in favor of SUV’s, which are obviously much more thirsty, and less desirable these days…

Anyway, not my concern.