Didn't know whether to post this in Plug-in section or Gen2 section so just ended up picking Plug-in. Just wonder if anyone out there has experimented putting a Prius Plug-in lithium battery into a Gen2 or Gen 3 prius equipped with a nickel-hydrid battery. I think most of the electronics are on the battery and you would probably just have to connect the positive and negative cables in the car to the new lithium pack, of course you would have to custom mount it to your car. If they kept the voltages and software the same seemes like it would work the same with just a higher capacity. Just wonder if any experimenters out there have tried this.
I did a quick search for "lithium battery replace" and found this fascinating thread; ??? about battery replacement. Also rear-ended. | PriusChat Enjoy.
oh ya, this is pretty common. check out plug in supply, they make a turkey, but a lot of peeps have diy'ed it with good success.
There will be limited improvement or maybe even worse mileage because............... Unless you can plug it into the wall to charge, 100% of the energy that goes into and comes out of the battery comes from the GAS ENGINE, one way or another. Additional battery capacity in a true hybrid does little or nothing for fuel efficiency.
If you live in Colorado, there is a big tax credit for converting a hybrids to plug-in. 3ProngPaul here on Prius chat is affliated with Boulder Hybrid Conversions, he does this for a living. But they are not moving PiP batteries over to Prius hybrid, they are using thrid party batteries. PiP is a Gen3 but I do not think you can just move the PiP batteries over to a Gen3...you probably need to have a PiP to have the exact fit for a PiP battery. But philosophically you can equip a Gen2 or Gen3 with a Li battery with plug-in capability. Except for Colorado it's not going to make a whole lot of financial cents (sense).
To my knowledge, no one has purchased a PiP replacement battery yet, so we do not even have a cost in the Toyota part store... and I suspect we are most happy to NOT hear the cost ($$$$$) of a replacement Li PiP batt. That could be a real downer for all of us. Perhaps we need to be mentally prepared for the day when we hear that number from Toyota. Breathe deeply...In....Out... OK all joking aside...many will recall when Re-Involt was selling Gen2 replacement batts (before Dorman bought them out). As I recall they were advertising an Li replacement batt option coming soon for the Gen2's. This what I thought I might do when the time came. But Re-Involt died well before my NiMH battery died, so I never got the chance. I wonder what happened to that project?
