Next Gen Prius Prime

The current Prius Prime only has an 8.8-kWh battery pack, I think. The RAV4 Prime will get a 17.3-kWh pack (nearly twice that of the Prius'). I would think that there would be less interior space if they try to replicate that in the Prius'; the RAV4' benefits from its larger size. That said, I don't think that the Chevy Volt is much larger than the Prius', and the Volt has an 18.4-kWh pack. Not sure what Toyota's problem is there...

 

a larger battery, even under the floor in a whole new design will cost hybrid mpg's.

i suspect toyota has an expectant market for the rav4 prime, but not likely prius prime. rav4 is a utilitarian vehicle, currently popular by any measure.
prius is an eco vehicle, currently unpopular. all that will change sometime in the future, but for now, i would think they would put their effort into getting the existing battery fully under the hatch.

nevertheless, i'm interested to see what the next gen will bring.

 

Hmmm, for the RAV4 Prime I just took the Prime's battery pack, kept the voltage the same but doubled the Ah and came up with 17.58kWh. I figured if Toyota can double the original battery kWh in 5 years from the PiP to the Prime they should be able to double it again in 5 years between the Prime and RAV4 Prime. So could they use 3 of those packs and make a Prius EV to 53 kWh or just use the RAV4 Prime battery to get 50 mile AER in a next gen Prius Prime?

 

not sure i follow you. double it in what way? it is a physically larger battery in prime than pip. so large it wouldn't fit under the floor. of course, the independent suspension probably didn't help.
don't forget, toyota wasnt going to increase ev range in prime until toyota usa told them it wouldn't sell.

 

I hope you guys realize that the days are numbered for the existence of entire Prius line. The countdown started when Corolla Hybrid was introduced since Prius was built on a Corolla chassis so it would make no sense to build two essentially the same cars on the same chassis with very different designs and under different names.
The Prime might exist a little longer until Toyota decides where it wants to go with electrifying. Either turn it into full EV or add Prime to every other model, or they might just do both.

 

A "Prius EV" (not hybrid) that goes 0-60 in under 7 seconds, goes at least 300 miles on a charge, is more efficient than LiIon at the North Pole (a.k.a., solid state) esp. for better regen, and doesn't have the phantom drain of a Tesla, would be my recommendation to go with Prime's successor. Battery pack would go under the car, not in the car.

But then how to compete against Tesla Supercharger...? I'm not sitting around on L2 for 4 hours to regain 100 miles on a road trip. Any fast "open" standard soon for Toyota...?

 

That's a red herring. The interest for a hatchback model will continue, regardless of name.

 

It's more like model year 2023, which is at least three years from now -- current Prime got its mid-cycle refresh only a few months ago. It's not worth speculating or expecting what the new model will be like. You might as well be waiting for two more updates with the model year 2029.

 

Let’s look what happened in Europe when they introduced the Corolla Sport and Touring hybrid hatchbacks.

Total Hybrid sales in Europe were 392,804. Of those the C-HR Hybrid was the number 1 seller at 94,536. Corolla with the Hybrid Sport and Touring Hatchbacks and Hybrid Sedan got another 89,835 sales. The Yaris Hybrid took 86,330 while the RAV4 Hybrid sucked up 75,168 sales. The other 46,935 sales were split among the Camry Hybrid and the three Prius models (Prius+, Prius and Prius PHV).

I would probably guess the Prius is not long for the European market or at least it may shrink in models.

Note: these were yearly sales figures were as of October 21 of this year. No data yet from November.


Unsupervised!

 

I think the future of the battery and charging technology will go with high-voltage charging -- around 10 - 20 kV. Then you can put 300 miles in 5 or 10 minutes. The current technology allows it but it will be a while -- probably a decade -- before new standards and safety protocols are developed.

 

That'll never happen in US household as we can't even get off using 110V. Imagine the line of lawyers licking their chops at the door when you have a 20Kv outlet... LOL That's not to say there can't be those super charging stations.

 

EV Prius or bust imo, but since this is Toyota, watch it be some sort of hydrogen plug-in...thingie. Although, for the right price...

 

Oh, no, I am talking about public charging stations of the future that will be equivalent to gas stations of the present, where you can fill up your (gas tank or battery) in about five or ten minutes.

 

iirc, toyota is commited to prius in some form. we cant be shortsighted in thinking that gas prices will never increase again, or there won't be another recession.
i din't think corolla is a worthy alternative, from what i've read.