Project Lithium customer review

Ok I took the plunge and bought a project lithium (special thank you to Prius camper)

Due to UPS not PL it took 10 days to get here on a 3 day ups delivery. Have contacted PL and we are working on holding UPS feet to the fire for it.

The big brown truck dropped it off today and I watched the install video one last time and jumped right in. Install was easy as 1,2,3.

Dropped it back in and made my 23 year old son carry it to the car. It took both of us to get it out but after upgrade he was shocked how lite it was.

Had one minor hick up on install. Got so excited to try it out I started it without putting the orange plug in and it threw a code with the dash lit up. Unfortunately I did not realize I forgot the orange plug till after I rushed to shut the car down and unplugged everything and texted camper all frantic that I just blew up the new battery lol

Camper talked me off the ledge, I hooked everything back up, INSTALLED THE ORANGE SAFETY PLUG, cleared the codes and then went on a test drive.

Prior to install I drove an 8 mile circuit on my 3 month old refurb. I was able to get 40.2mpg according to the dash. Battery temp hit 89. Outside temp was 76.

Same route with the new cells 48.6 mpg battery temp 74 with outside temp at 71.

This was only 8 miles so I am not going to tell everybody this is the best thing since sliced bread yet but I will say I am initially happy.

Tomorrow night will be the first real test because I drive for my wife who does doordash. On an average night we will do between 75 and 200 miles so we will see how it goes.

Will try to post on this thread at least one time a week for the next month or so to give report on how things are going.

 

Here is a Dr Prius screen shot at 40mph on a very slight up hill grade

 

Ok guys first night of doordash and here's what I found so far. All "prior" numbers are based on a 3 month old refurb by a respected east coast shop.

We deliver in the same area of the city and average between 38 and 42mpg.

Tonight with a total of 70 miles of Pittsburgh suburban deliveries, me acting as driver,wife picking up and dropping off orders so car was on all 5 hours we are looking at 56.1 mph.

Not going to throw any parties after one night because the battery is fresh with only a total of about 110 miles on it but it is looking good.

I was experiencing some heat issues with my refurb (high of 128 degrees) so have been keeping an eye on that. I hit the 128 with outside temps at 83. Was only 71 today but high temp was 101 with it running most of the time at low to mid 90. These numbers are with windows down no AC

 

Something I found interesting. With the hills around Pittsburgh it was not unusual to see pack voltage as tracked in Dr Prius spike into the red at over 280 for several seconds from brake regen. On those same hills tonight the highest I saw tonight was 247. I tried my best not to change my breaking or driving style to try to give a fair comparison.

 

Week one check in:

Well the first night's gas milage was a slight anomaly but everything is going good. Car is being mainly used to doordash and we have done between 70 and 130 miles a night.

As I said before most nights with the 3 month old refurb battery we would do 39-41 mpg. This week we have done 50-51mpg. IR has remained steady across the board (+/- 1) and 11 seems to be where she likes to be though will rise up to 15 and been as low as 9.

Outside temps have been between 60 and 75 most of our work time and battery seems to run low to mid 90 degrees. Had 80 degrees and battery hovered around 100. Today is our hotest day of the year at 91 degrees and just to see made my wife who is anti AC very happy and ran no ac windows down for an hour. Battery temp climbed to 108 fairly quickly and stuck there.

After that nonsense I set cabin temp to 73 degrees and within 20 minutes battery settled at 100 degrees.

All in all am happy so far with the conversion/upgrade. Even when my wife drives (she refuses to "Prius" drive) we are seeing a out a 9mpg increase.

Also as mentioned earlier, with the refurb battery, would regularly see down hill breaking cause pack volt reading to be as high as 290 plus for 5 to 10 seconds on some hills. Have tried to hard break on some of these areas and have not gotten above mid 240's pack volt

 

Matty, last night ran the ac most of the 5 hour shift and seemed to always be driving up hill and did worst mpg so far at just under 46mpg. Was a bit discouraging after the past week lol.

One thing to think about is if your cells are still fairly healthy you might find a rehab guy willing to buy your current packs off of you when you upgrade which could offset cost.

 

Ok almost a month in and figured I would check in. Weather here in Pittsburgh has quickly turned to damn it's hot. Been doing my best to cool the car down by opening all 4 doors and the hatch before I crawl into the oven but AC has been running at 3/4 to max much of the time (about 5 hours of doordash a night).

Had temps on battery climb to 115 on a 98 degree day before the cabin cooled down and the ac brought it down to high 90's.

With AC running so hard some nights I am down to about 44 mpg but averaging high 40's still and even had one night at 52mpg (seemed I drove down hill the entire shift lol)

One month point opinion........I am a true believer in the project lithium. Unfortunately they are currently all out of stock or I would be ordering one for my son's 2008 right now.

I know my milage is not impressive to some but if anyone lives in the Pittsburgh, pa area is on here that could post their mpg and other stats to try to compare apples to apples or even better anyone in the area that went the NPB route I would be excited to see how they do head to head

 

Got that email the day after my battery swap unfortunately. I pulled the cover and the rebuilder may have used the ones we were warned about. Been tossing around the idea of tracking down some OEM but have not noticed any issue

 

Got perfect hill to do that test Warrior. Will do the run tomorrow and post results and screen shots

 

92 it is all about point of view. My 06 in Pittsburgh rust belt is still solid (really can't figure out how the rockers look so good lol)

We put about 700 miles a week on it. It is serviced by, from many reports here, a unicorn dealership that has 3 full certed mechs and they have never tried to "up sell" me on anything. With the upgrade I am getting an extra 70 to 90 miles per 7 gallon fill up. At current prices that is a savings of $8 per tank. That comes out to a savings of about $600 a year.

Throw in the fact that my last rebuilt battery with a 2 year warranty cost $800 and had to be replaced at 14 months and the piece of mind that this battery that I believe was $2200 shipped will preform flawlessly for at least 5 years with out playing wack a mole every 6 to 8 months adds the value of piece of mind that my wife or daughter will not call me frantic that the red triangle of death popped up AGAIN makes the choice a no brainer to me.

I understand your view and if you only have grocery and short work commute it can actually be argued that you really are not getting full value out of owning a Prius. If you are running your Prius at a fair amount of miles however and do the math the project lithium or toasters NPB are real options that should be considered.

Off to do that hill test now.

 

Ok hill test time. Hill is 1.3 miles with an elevation change according to my app if 1401 ft.

Car is warmed up. Outside temp is 82 degrees. Speed is 30mph up and down the hill. I ran this test without the ac running. Here are starting screen shots