i am looking to buy a prius, hoping to get one with no more than 50,000 but when i get out of warranty which wont take me all that long, i am very interested in doing some kind of kit i drive a minimum of 80 miles a day and sometimes 225 i live 18 miles from the interstate on a rd that is 55mph , in my regular cars/trucks i gain a lot of mileage during this part of the trip in and out i would say overall i do 50/50 in hwy/city i am not a hypermiler but i do pay attention, coast a lot and watch the red lights usually do 70mph on the 75 mph interstates here any suggestions? maybe i should just get a higher mileage one for less money and do a kit, lol i will have to pay someone to put this in and i do not want anything i have to check every 2 hours to make sure it is not overcharging etc i am good at watching gauges in the car but basically want a overnight plug in kit of some type that takes care of itself , not even sure this is available thanks for any input
I have no experience w/these kits but there aren't that many choices and the benefit may not be as great as you might hope for as the ICE must spin at >42 mph. If your drives were mostly below that speed, then it'd help a lot. At highway speeds, I suspect the improvement will not be huge. You can read about TheForce's experiences w/the Hymotion kit at posts like: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...57-review-hymotion-battery-plug-in-prius.html http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-p...ns/67057-one-year-hymotion-plug-in-prius.html He's put up these great posts too. http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...prius-ii-plug-in-hybrid-electric-vehicle.html http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...prius-ii-plug-in-hybrid-electric-vehicle.html For those who probably don't go out of their way to get great MPG nor have drives that are necessarily conducive to improvement w/plugins, see Google.org. (You can get here via rechargeit.org.)
I think the answer is no kit. 100 miles a day is beyond the range of any EV kit out there currently. You'd be literally hauling around a hundred pounds of dead weight after you deplete the charge of the extra batteries.
I think your commute is ideal for a stock Prius. You should get 55 MPG on the 55 MPH section if there are few stops. 45 MPG is very doable at 70 MPH. I would expect your overall average to be near the 45 MPG range, but perhaps I added more stops than you have. Winter driving would detract from that but if you are in Southern AZ you do not see much winter, if you are in Northern AZ read up on grill blocking.
I agree, Invest your money in a Gen3 2010 Prius. If you must look at PHEV then go for as much battery capacity as you can get because you will use it all. Do not worry about EV because that will just run down the batteries quicker. My Enginer kit gives me 65mpg at 55mph but that only gives 40 miles for 4kwhr. So you would need 10kwhr to do 100 miles with. This ratio will be about the same for any PHEV. Thanks, Dan
thank you guys, this is the info i needed i drove one for 4-5 days on rental a few years ago, not sure year but probably 2005 or 2006, i was managing to get 58 but i was driving for it and that prob wasnot a whole tank on one of these even thought i drive a lot really hoping for 50-55mpg wish i could afford a gen 3 but just dont have the money
I agree. By a $10,000 investment, one can buy 2500 gallons of gasoline at $4/gallon. We can drive stock Prius for 125,000 miles at 50 mpg average using that amount of gasoline. Ken@Japan
