Where are all the Hymotion purchasers?

Hi dpguest,
Not sure where the others users are. I expect that many of these installations are for companies, municipalities, etc. Also the initial deliveries were delayed by one month. The $9995 price is pretty high for the average driver. I don't consider myself one for trying to "break an MPG record", but I do want to get the best out of the L5 and the car.
Yesterday I put 18 miles going to the Hardware store, garage (to ask about sliming my tires) get a haircut and the grocery store to get a salad for dinner. I don't have an EBH (yet). The car was shut off between each of these trips. SGII showed a 111MPG Average for the day. Today I tried EV mode in a few short trips(successfully) and then late in the day had to drop off and then pickup my daughter at her FFA meeting. The L5 ran out of juice and the last 13 miles were run in normal Prius mode. Today's total miles 40.5 Miles MPG Avg was 97.5. Also I don't know what is the real mileage with the SCII bug and the MFD will not display the actual MPG. Since I fit the profile of commuting <26Miles a day (actually 21.2) to get an accurate MPG I will wait until I fillup the tank. Which I expect to be about 10 weeks since I had the install on 8/26/08.
I don't have statistics for my commute since I didn't have the SGII the last time I commuted. I believe that the more highway miles the lower the MPG will be. I must say that I am very impressed with how the L5 handles SHM once the ICE is warm.
I hope this helps a little.
Chris

 

How does the aux battery affect the electric motors? Don't they overheat or run hotter ? I guess they were never designed to be run for long under pure electric mode.

 

Prius' electric motors are liquid-cooled. If their temperature goes out of bounds, the system is supposed to throw a code and stop (you) before damage is done.

Hymotion (and other) Prius PHEV conversions spoof the battery management computer to play nice with the larger battery, but they do not interfere with thermal management of the electric motors.

 

So does the Hymotion actually "charge" the stock battery pack so it appears to the electronics that nothing is amiss ?

I guess the hymotion battery doesn;t benefit from regen braking.. that would be the next logical step.

 

I haven't posted any reviews as I am really not very good at keeping detailed records and don't have Scangauge, so I can't give mileage above 99.9mpg.
The Minneapolis instal had done 6 prior to mine. They did get a late start, but things seem to be running smoothly now. When I picked mine up last Friday morning they had two more they were working on
On the initial trip home I averaged 75mpg over about 70 miles.
With a 27 mile round trip Sunday (all city streets) I topped out at 99.9mpg (that is the day I ordered SG). And local commuter store trips <9 miles have all maxed out at 99.9mpg.
I don't have a full EV switch option. Thinking about getting that mod, but as of yet, I will just be happy with the extra battery.

The hymotion pack does not benefit directly from regen braking. There is a company in CO doing conversions. With their plan, they actually take out the stock battery and replace it with a larger Lithium battery. So their battery does benefit from regen braking. However, I believe the cost is around 25k and is only done locally in CO (they will ship your car to you).

 

Zythryn,
Nice to see another consumer with the kit. You may want to wait on the EV switch. I have only found one time that I wish I could have used it, since I had the L5 installed. It was the day after the L5 ran out and the car would not enter EV mode automatically until the ICE was fully warmed and I was able to stop the car at a stop sign. At that point the L5 entered EV mode and worked 'normally' again. Once you get the SGII you can set an xgauge to see EV mode(as well as many other stats). Also I don't use the SGII while driving. Only to check the stats when I stop.
Chris

 

Just an FYI - I spoke with Erin at A123 earlier today about my install and asked her about this...just wanted to be sure that there was no possible issue with electric motor overheating due to lack of coolant circulation during extended periods of non-ICE use. She said that the installation of the L5 pack in no way interferes with the cooling of the engine components. In other words its as safe as the Prius is in its stock configuration (just MUCH better mileage). No worries:couch2:

 

I'd imagine if you had your motor fail Toyota may not cover it with the conversion as they could use the argument of the electric motor not designed for extended use as the primary source of locomotion. I'm playing devil's advocate here because I've never heard of a single motor replaced on a Prius so I doubt this would ever happen...but just throwing that out there. :mullet:

 

Hey, no problem...if this ever happened in an L5-equipped Prius I'm sure Hymotion would cover it under their warranty/repair coverage that comes with every install. I don't think I've ever seen a post that talked about an MG1/MG2 repair or replacement...probably almost as rare as a broken propeller on a Prius...

 

There IS ICE dependent lubrication in the Prius. I think it is to lube the transmission, but I may be wrong about the component. I'm sorry I cannot remember details; prior threads in this forum have discussed this at length, and I have seen a couple of reccs from the Prius hackers amongst us. Perhaps an email to CalCars would be informative.

If it was my Prius I'd err on the safe side in terms of periodic ICE use.

 

I think this is one of the big steps towards massed market feasibility represented by the Hymotion kit. Most of the conversions available are more expensive, but are also still considered experimental and have no warranty. Hymotion is the first to offer a warranty on not only its batteries and electronics, but on any parts of your Prius that Toyota decides they will not cover.

Convert your hybrid electric vehicle into a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle

Rob

 

This is a theoretical problem that has been worried about since the early conversion days. To my knowledge no one has yet seen any indication of the problem becoming a reality. Of course, who wants to be the first one? I believe this is one of the reasons many of the conversion (including Hymotion) do not use an EV mode to defeat the engine warm up cycle. Then you are assured of at least some ICE action every time you run the car.

Rob

Rob

 

I have been waiting for two Prius Hymotion installs and they were completed today. The cars are in Denver but I am shipping them back to St. Louis where I live. I may sell one as I also purchased a RAV 4 EV and a Civic NGV so I have too many vehicles. I will let you know how my Hymotion performs next week!

 

Great - looking forward to your report!

 

Thanks everyone for starting to get these posts rolling. I'm waiting on a December install. I'll try to get my engine block heater installed before then so I can really maximize mileage, especially in winter.

 

My vehicle with the Hymotion installed is supposed be be delivered Sunday morning. I'll post some feedback after my first day.

 

Mine was installed Friday. Today my family and I did a 20 mile round trip, mostly on 35 mph and slower streets, and the Scangauge read 128 mpg for the trip. No special techniques, other than trying to accelerate slowly enough that the ICE won't come on, as traffic allows.

The only problem I had so far is that I inadvertently plugged it into the same circuit that my freezer is on, and it tripped the house circuitbreaker sometime in the middle of the night, the first time I tried to charge it. It draws close to 10 amps at peak. Call it 1100 watts or so. Moved it to a different circuit and had no problem the second night. I'm thinking I might wire up a dedicated line, just for charging the car.

It's a retrofit, and it has limitations. It pretty much kicked the engine on right at the 34 mph EV limit for the entire trip. And above that speed, it seemed to do a lot of idling the ICE without using it to drive the wheels. Which is annoying but unavoidable. The upside of that is that it minimizes my worry about lubrication problems. And I'm sure it'll get worse mileage as winter sets in. But the bottom line for my first trip was 128 MPG gas and (roughly) 0.2 KWH per mile. Won't know the exact KWH figure until it's finished charging tonight.

It works, right out of the box. Only tough decision is whether or not to put the PHEV bumper sticker on the car.

Had mine done at Fitzgerald Toyota in Gaithersburg MD. Very nice people. If I lived in MD I'd definitely use them again.

One afterthought on the transmission lubrication thing -- if you're running electric only, you're not stressing the transmission much because you're only putting out a max of 40 hp or so So the periods of under-lubrication are also periods of low mechanical stress. Maybe that's part of the reason why this hasn't been an issue (yet) for these conversions.

 

I'm surprised you cannot glide up to 42 mph, or warp-stealth at higher speeds depending on SOC and power demand, like a stock Prius.

Thoughts ? Was the engine allowed to heat up ?

Certainly true about the lube question. I keep thinking that smart use will be blended mode for acceleration and inclines, EV the rest of the time. Maybe more frequent transmission fluid replacement would be cheap insurance -- or at least a chemical checkup. As for failure reporting, seems way too early to draw conclusions about premature failure rates. I want to know failure rate on 1000 conversions with 100k miles each post conversion.

Thanks Chogan and all the early adopters who post. It's great reading !