Links: New story: EV WORLDwire: California Company Develops 40-Mile Plug-in Prius The Ewerts page, watch the video: Ewert Energy Systems PICC page, not updated yet.. Gold Peak Plugs into Plug-In Conversions The Ewert brothers have modified the Gen II and Gen III Toyota ECUs, and can now go up to 70mph all electric. Combine this with the 12.5KW Lithium pack, soon to be available from PICC, you have a PHEV that is technically better than Toyota's own 2012 PHEV. They end up "spinning" the ICE with no fuel, to not overrev the MG1/MG2. Yes, there is some loss with this method, nothing is perfect. Yes, this is NOT cheap. It will never "make economic sense" or "pay for itself", I doubt any PHEV will. Let's not argue about the economics, if we already own 2004-2010 Priu, then we only have the incremental cost of adding the PHEV conversion kit. (estimated to be about $12K) I myself was planning to buy a Leaf, but they are not availble "on the wrong coast" until "Fall/Winter 2011", so I might just not wait, in theory the PICC kit will be available the end of THIS year. Anyone with PICC experience or that is running the Ewert's modified firmware, please comment on your experience with the system Thanks, Mitch
I have a PICC25M system in my Gen2 Prius and I may be beating a dying drum here (or horse or whatever) but my favorite feature is the fact that I don't need to modify my driving habits at all to achieve 100+ MPG for short range driving like other systems may require. I just drive my car like a normal gasoline car (with the gasoline engine running I might add) and I really have no trouble getting the advertised mileage. Sure, I drive around in EV mode sometimes to make a point (or sneak up on people, he he) but personally I like the added acceleration of having the ICE running and I don't feel too bad about running the ICE since I'm still driving almost exclusively on electricity anyway (it uses the electric range first before using the gasoline engine to provide additional motive force to preserve the OEM vehicle motive power range)... Just my 2 cents. I assume the Gen3 2010 version will be the same. Andrew
PICC needs more installation/maintenance centers. San Francisco is a long way to go for support. Speaking of which, have your system needed any 'tweaking'?
Hmm, well PICC has dealers / distributors around the country (around the world actually). You'd have to contact them for the location of a dealer / installer nearest you. As for tweaking, there have been a couple software updates but the system is designed to be remotely updateable without dismantling the vehicle thus a 'tweak' doesn't mean needing to drive across the state or anything. It's a pretty simple and straight forward process. Andrew
Andrew, I'm curious how that works, Have they actually altered Toyota's firmware? Do they have a separate embedded system that connects over CAN? How is the update performed, and what is actually being updated. There isn't any useful (geek) information on the site. Also, where are you located, and would you be open to demonstrating your system? -P
wow, this is pretty cool, although does it still pose a (potential) safety risk as the ICE cannot kick in unless the car is restarted?
You're thinking of another conversion by Plug-In Supply. PICC does not use this 'technique', though I would love to hear how they have bypassed the 34 mph EV mode limit.
From what I've read, they "spin" the ICE without injecting fuel, to avoid overreving. It does sound like they have replaced several of the ECU's firmware, in order to be able to accomplish this. They also remove the factory NiMh battery, and replace it with a much larger 12.5KW Lithium pack (which exact chemistry I don't exactly know). They can also now "restart" the ICE without having to shutoff the car, when they need to.
As far as I understand it, the EV mode could run up to 52mph with no engine spin, but after that, it must. So on the 70mph "EV only" trip Ewert demonstrated, it was doing the basic "warp stealth" configuration where the cam is adjusted by VVTi to have the least amount of pumping loss and then fuel is cut. I don't think they have actually altered anything in the Hybrid ECU, it's likely all being done by CAN. Andrew?
Just found this thread so I thought I'd give it a bump. I have the PICC conversion in my 2006. I guess you could say I'm one of the early adopters having had the system installed since August of 2009. The description of the install and my initial impressions are detailed on this thread: http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-p...s/70790-plug-in-conversions-owners-forum.html Being an early adopter I've been able to experience the improvements to the user interface since the initial install. I no longer have to rely on a connected Netbook for switching modes, instead I have a push button control panel installed below the radio (behind the drop down door). Through a series of LED's it shows me my state of charge and allows me to easily switch between hybrid; short, medium or long PHEV; or EV modes of operation. All of this can be done on the fly (except if you don't start in EV mode, you can't get back there until the car completes its warm-up cycle). When you are in EV and need to GO, a hard press on the go pedal will drop you out of EV automatically (which is good from a safety standpoint, but could be bad from a pollution standpoint if you didn't allow the ICE warm-up at the start of your drive before switching to EV). The control panel was not in final production when my conversion was done so I ended up installing it myself following instructions PICC provided. Since the conversion we have updated the charging profile on the charger (via a serial connection on the charger) once and the Hybrid Energy Manager firmware twice (via the CAN bus using the CANdapter device the Ewerts developed). The only issues I've had have been a few error codes related to coolant temperatures being lower than expected (which I caused by trying to shorten the warm up sequence before switching to EV and may also be contributed to by an inverter coolant pump which has yet to be changed under the recently announced Limited Service Campaign). The only observations I might add is that both my mpg and range has dropped since last year. However this has been traced to a battery balancing issue during the manufacture of the early packs which is now corrected on new packs. So as a result PICC is bringing a new pack to Houston next month to change it out at no charge (showing that they do stand behind their product).
Any more info about their lithium systems and estimated range? The only thing on their website seems to be the 25 mile NiMH system.
It doesn't inspire confidence when the manufacturer's web site is full of old news, no mention of their new products and they don't answer emails.
When I last spoke to Kim Adelman (mid-December) he indicated they were working on an update to the web-site to include information on their Gen III LiOn conversion.
Try using the phone, I've never had a problem. Also be aware that Kim is frequently out of the country doing installs of their systems (he was in China when Steve and I were doing my install). You may want to also contact one of their Dealers/installers for information, check the links and friends portion of the PICC website The Ewert's are an installer in the Chicago area and I'd bet money they could give you a good indication of what the near future holds. I believe "Volt Killer" was the term used... Wouldn't that be great, to have a longer EV range than the Volt and have 50+ mpg in extended range mode. Just conjecture now, but wouldn't that be SWEET! :rockon:
