Question for potential prime buyer

You will love this car after your '06 Prius. I charge using the 110 v and it takes about 5.5 hours. I charge mine overnight so there is no problem. If you take your elec. bill and divide your total bill by the kWh hours used, it will give you your elec. per kWh cost. It takes about 6.3 kWh to get a full charge. You will only need the 240 v it you need to charge faster (about 2.5 hrs.). How long is your commute? Good Luck.

 

Each area is different for electricity costs. My area is about $0.10 a kWh. Your power bill should tell you or you can calculate it yourself by taking your bill amount and dividing the kWh usage and you will get your rate. It costs me about $0.50 a charge per day for 37 EV miles. You don't have to get anything special to charge the car. You can charge the car with the 110 V cord it comes with. It will take 5 1/2 hours to completely charge the battery full. If you want to charge it faster, then a 240 V charger would need to be installed to do that at approx alittle over 2 hours.

#1 in Easley,SC

 

Here are a couple recent threads on the subject of gas vs electric cost comparison:
HV vs. EV Mode Cost | PriusChat
Cost of Electric vs Cost of Gas - where is the break even point | PriusChat

Basically, you figure how much electricity is and how much gas is and then figure how much of either you use per mile. Unless gas is really cheap and/or electricity is really expensive, EV mode will be cheaper. The graph in the first link makes it pretty easy to see.

 

EVSE purchase & installation in 2017 | PriusChat

I've been working on an illustrated document to share about my experience upgrading to 240-volt chargers, for a 2 Prime household. Tomorrow morning, the final step should be complete (adding Time-Of-Use meters).

Stay tuned. I'll post details in that link above.

 

You can probably get about 25 miles for EV (electric only) in the beginning, but as you figure out the best way for you to drive it, now that the weather is warmer, you can get up to 35 miles or better. Being a Prius driver, you should have no problem.

 

Today was a 27 mile drive home from work with my wife. We started with a full charge. The climb out of the river valley at 55 mph with the A/C on was rather demanding. That changed to a 65 mph cruise a good chunk of the way. I passed twice in excess of 70 mph. Got home, still 1.4 miles of EV left. The entire trip was all electric.

 

Like others have said, you don't need a 240v charger (called an L2 charger) unless you want to charge multiple times per day at home.
The cost for this varies from about $500 - $1000 plus installation which can be another $500 to $1000. It all depends on local electrician rates and the complexity of your install. You will NEVER make back those savings, IMO, so don't worry about getting 240v L2 charger.

Note: I just got an L2 charger at home, but I have a Leaf and a Prius plugin. In 5 years with the Prius plugin there were probably a couple of dozen times when I got home, starting charging and wanted to go out again and the car wasn't fully charged up yet so I had to use some gas that I otherwise wouldn't have needed to.

Mike

 

240-volt isn't necessary. It is nice for the faster charging though, especially if you take advantage of climate-prep. In our case, we have an incentive from our electric company... $500 per charger when setup for Time-Of-Use or Off-Peak use. There isn't as much of a benefit with a smaller battery-pack like in Prime, but then we do have 2.

 

Charging from the standard 110V outlet in my garage overnight works like a charm. Super easy! As you can see from a couple of threads in the past 6 months, though, it's a good idea to use an outlet that's not on the same circuit with a bunch of other stuff or you'll probably be frequently tripping it. Toyota states that a dedicated circuit is "recommended but not required."

 

Buy the Prime. It is worth it just for the federal tax credit. The larger battery gives more efficient hybrid operation even after the initial charge is depleted.

The new Prius chassis is two generations improved from what you have now. Our electrical cost is about 3¢ a mile. Yours will be a bit different. I see the 240 volt system as a waste of money. A full charge saves about a buck's worth of gas. There's nothing wrong with the 120 volt charging system...it just takes 5+ hours. Or spend several hundred dollars to charge in 2 hours.

 

My previous car is a 07 prius. Couldn't love my prime better. Go get it.

 

This may seem right, but it's probably not because the bill likely includes some fixed costs such as meter reading, billing, and possibly even service. What matters is the marginal cost of the next kWh. Depending on how you are billed this can be anywhere from a snap to impossible to figure out. But that's what you need to know to figure out how much it will cost to charge the car.

 

Tell us your city and we'll look up your utility company and rates.

Bob Wilson

 

Carol, I can't charge at home - no access in my condo garage. So I've become an opportunistic charger. Supermarkets, Goodwill, the airport.... Even with just the occasional charge it's worth it to me. I got 32 'free miles' by charging at the airport Sunday.

Do it, you won't regret it.

 

In the last 10 weeks, I've managed to get 35 minutes of opportunistic charging in around my city, all in one place and all in two sessions.

In Kansas City I managed more like 8 hours in 5 days.

My point is, it depends on where you are and how available chargers are in that area.

 

New L2 EVSE's are now getting close to the $200 level. (amazon link not showing up)

Installation can be free if DIY (not suggesting the OP go this route) and a few dollars in parts ($27 in my case).

 

Didn't you petition your condo for access to plugging in? How did that go?

 

Yes, there are some L2 EVSE's that are about $240-$280 at Amazon. These plug into a NEMA 6-20 plug for example. These lower cost ones seem to all be 16 amps, which is actually more than the Prime's max (3.3 kw) 16 amps * 240v is more than 3.3 kw.

Mike