yesterday while driving on the freeway in EV mode, my PIP (one of the first delivered to the states) flashed the "Check Hybrid System - Stop the vehicle in a safe place" message. i was near my house so i just went home. my SG2 showed code P0C3E, which is apparently an inverter overtemperature code. took it to the dealer this morning and they just informed me that the car needs a new inverter, but no other details… "internal fault" is what he said. while googling, i found this recall notice: Green Car Congress: Toyota recalling about 701,000 Gen 3 Prius vehicles in US over software issue in inverter assembly that doesn't talk specifically about the PIP and implies that it is a software problem, but goes on to say if the car is in a fault condition the inverter will be replaced. of course, it's possible that a software problem leads to hardware damage. the car has only about 10k miles, and about 6k of them are EV mode, so i suppose the inverter has had a workout in it's short life. regardless if toyota is going to sell a plug-in vehicle then it should be possible to run on EV 100% of the time. i'm a little disappointed and hope that this is a defect rather than a design flaw. rob
It may just be a coincidence / bad luck. My understanding is the PiPs are not affected by the recall, but I could be wrong. There are plenty of folks on PC with a lot more EV miles than you've put on, so a major design flaw seems unlikely but it will be interesting to see what they say.
sorry this thread got posted twice, i will reply here as there are more replies. is the inverter in the PiP different than the Gen3 prius? i was under the impression they are the same, but i can see why they would be different. rob
I'm not sure whether they're using different part numbers but I'm sure the software is treating them differently.
My recollection is that based on part numbers the transaxles are the same, but the inverters are different. There may very well be a hardware difference in the inverter to support the greater sustained current / power capability of the PiP battery.
