How is your dealer about charging up your PiP?

Why should anybody want to charge any vehicle? Why shouldn't we all go back to driving ICE machines? Why shouldn't we go back to wasting gas. What is the point of conserving? The answer is: We are all involved in using and conserving oil. So everybody should be involved. OIL is critical for many other products that cannot be made with anything else but OIL. Believe it or not, gasoline from oil is not the priority. So, everybody should be contributing to charging your car, because you went to the trouble and took the chance on a Prius, then later a PIP. SOMEWHERE, down the line the average consumer will understand this philosophy and who knows, perhaps even the people working at Toyota Dealerships might get it!

 

i believe what you're advocating for is communism

 

Comunism is forced enforcement, I am speaking of voluntary and cooperative action by an informed and enlightened society desiring to alleviate a situation experienced by all. For every problem there is a solution. If everybody owned a Pip, BEV , alternative fuel vehicle, gasoline could drop down to $1.00 a Gal.

 

I guess you missed the at the end of my sentence

 

Not at all, I knew you were just jesting. But it gave me an opportunity to further clarify to others. TY

 

I just picked up my car this morning from the 10k oil change. I left it Friday night and today is Sunday. I wanted to see whether they would charge the car since they had it for over 36 hours.They didn't! I was going to bring it up if they contact me for the survey.

 

I just bought my new PiP and was surprised at going over the checklist with the salesman that it wasn't charged. But they did fill up the tank with gas. Weird.

When we were going over the PiP features, they did mention that customers are welcome to bring the car in to charge for free anytime.

 

They did charge my battery when I picked up my PiP (but did delay me being able to pick it up).

 

My idiot dealer went on and on about how it will be full of fuel and have a full charge when i came in to take delivery. The day i went in, the fuel was down ONE BLOCK, and battery empty.

I truly hate 99% of dealerships..they are morons.

Dan

 

Hey lensovet,
Do you own a PiP yourself? The PiP manual even states that it's not good to leave your PiP charged up. Eventually you will ruin the Lithium-Ion tracking battery. So if the dealers charged them up for test drives and lets say for 6-10 hours no one drives one of the charged up PiPs on the lot - would you personally buy that particular PiP?
That is why the manual recommends using the built in timing function for charging. So for example on a work commute you know you leave at a certain time, so on a 110V charge you know to set the timer to charge 3 hours before the time you leave or on 220V 1.5 hours before you leave.
I personally would not buy a PiP that was charged up for test drives. When I bought mine none of them were test driven. They were all on the rooftop and they all had 2 to 3 miles from factory and yes, with very minimal charge.

Though the "snarky" salesmen in Berkeley may have not known why or cared that they weren't charged, at least their ignorance actually helped for the sake of the Lithium-ion tracking battery.

I'm experienced with Li-Ion and Li-Po (Lithium Polymer) technology and the manual is correct. I have spent over $20K in batteries for hobby stuff and these batteries are powerful, but the longevity of them counts on how you use them, and how you maintain them :

 

the manual doesn't refer to being fully charged as bad, when it's simply for a few hours, to a day or so ... that's not even an issue. Yes, Lithium packs "store" better when they're near the mid range. But worrying about tracking your full charge to happen at the moment you're jumping into the driver's seat is a tad over-kill. Remember, the PiP's traction pack has unusable capacity at both the top end as well as the empty end, so as to assure you're going to get 8 to 10 years of longevity.

That said, some dealers do bad at charging whilr other auto companies are great. What I consider to be the most gracious company when it comes to charging - I think of Mitsubishi headquarters. They even let other models of cars use their huge charging facility in Cypress CA ... even though other companies refuse to let Mitsu plug-ins charge. Now THAT's what I call being on the same page when it comes to gas conservation. Some of the other auto manufacturers ought to sit up and take notice.

 

lensovet "Microsoft is doing with the Surface"--the metaphor would be: the dealers won't take off their arsehats, so the manufacture forces their hand. There is a certain tension right now, as cars like the LEAF and Prius (and perhaps others, but I have experience with these two) are somewhat direct-to-consumer, leaving the dealers with a smallish and somewhat inflexible markup. I'll cry no tears, however. I'm forever amazed how I can walk into most any dealer and know more about their cars and their competitors' cars than they do. (And for the most part, I dislike cars.)
Anyway, to the OP: I always review places on plugshare.net. So give Toyota hell if they deserve it. And I will say that in the auto row near me, the chargers at the Nissan dealer are always open, tidy, and the people are really supportive about me charging a Prius there.

 

It all comes down to business. Electricity costs money and if they charge one PiP then it sets the wrong precedent. What stops people from demanding a gallon of gas or more? The PHV battery capacity is 5.1 khm but on a daily basis you are most likely charging 3-4 khw. Even though it might only cost the dealership a couple of dollars to charge the PiP battery or more since they are charged a different tier. Now think about doing that for all the PiPs that come into the dealership.

Not only that - why should I not demand a gallon of gas from the dealership? It costs about the same amount of money as charging the PiP. I can also travel more distance from a gallon of gas then a fully charged battery.

 

so - some auto dealers wash your car, offer drop off service, and serve foo-foo coffee and cookies. There's no more or less a cost to those kinds of freebies. Treat the customer right and they come back. Fail to treat the customer as well as the other business and the customer will go elsewhere.

SGH-I717R ? 2

 

You completely missed my point. Those freebies are offered to ALL customers, no matter what car they are driving. Charging the PHV battery will only be offered to those who have plug-in vehicles. Following your logic, a free gallon of gas should be given to all non plug-in vehicles. I do not think businesses should be playing favoritism, especially dealerships.

 

wanaset "

Not only that - why should I not demand a gallon of gas from the dealership? It costs about the same amount of money as charging the PiP"​

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do not know where you're at, but for me the difference is currently about $4 in favor of the electron. Back of the envelope calculation has me at about $32 in electricity for the ~1800 miles I've driven on it.​

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I *so* don't get the rump pucker about plugging in, but go ahead and demand your ​

gallon if it makes you feel better. I'm sure Exxon hears your pleas and will do everything they can to make it right.

 

You are comparing residential electricity rates to commercial. Most dealerships pay more for per khw, depending on if they have a single or three-phase service. I do agree with you that I chose the wrong words there, but it still does not change the fact that you are showing favoritism toward one customer. No matter how minimal the cost it is for the dealership to provide that service.

 

Not necessarily true for PG&E in CA. My PG&E rates before I put solar on my roof started out at 12 cents a kWh and could quickly rise to 34 cents a kWh. The average price per kWh I was paying was around 25 cents a kWh. Typical rates for electricity for commercial users varies a bit, but seems to be around 15 cents a kWh with no tiers. To fully charge a PiP at those rates would cost less than 50 cents. A gallon of gas around here is going for nearly $5 a gallon. To charge the relatively few PiP owners is pretty much noise in terms of the monthly bill. And what's wrong with showing a bit of favoritism to a group of customers who are early adopters of new and expensive car technology? Dealerships show favoritism to select groups of customers all the time. This is just a bit more tangible.

 

You should double check those commercial rates. Regardless, it is great that you are adopting expensive car technology but it still does not change the fact that the dealer is playing favoritism. The 1st gen prius owners were in the same boat, they also adopted very expensive car technology but they were not given a gallon of gas every time they went into the dealership. Too many people look for handouts these days.

 

1st gen prius owners did get favoritism – free maintenance for the first three years. i do remember how impossible it was to get that from the dealers though, who were completely clueless.
guess we're going to have to deal with the same level of cluelessness this time around. "plug-in certified" dealers my nice person.