I like the styling, performance and higher ground clearance. But less head room and space for rear passengers and cargo? Oh and Harder to see out of the back due to no more second split window? Man that is too much. Looking at used 2020 Primes and adding a Off Road Prius Lift kit would be a better financial choice if you can get past the looks and lack of HP in a Gen 4. I don't usually carry passengers but when I do. I DO and they need comfort. Otherwise I could buy a Miata or a motorcycle. But Limiting rear seat headroom to somebody 5'10" or less and reducing cargo area seems counter productive. As Bisco writes, "regression". Seems like the 3rd row seats in the MY. However in that car it is seats 6 and 7 not 3,4 and 5. Big difference.
The biggest reason for that is that Toyota ran out of customers looking for efficient cars. Mostly no, but does any of that matter in a phev?
They make their decisions based on marketing research/data science. If they thought 60 mpg would bring more profits, they would make a 60-mpg Prius. They made a high-hp Prius instead because that is what their marketing research indicated.
Sometimes I wonder. I don't think "more HP and bigger tires" was a popular sentiment here, but maybe we're a commercial backwater?
After driving around in several different states over the past year, one would think marketing research says push more SUV's & Pickups. & yet the number of the land barge market share with a plug? Not many builders capitalizing on that share.
I haven't seen actual numbers for the past 6 years. Seeing how reports of the tire sizes being common in Japan, bigger wheels might be popular there, and Toyota has designed the Prius for those tastes.
' GM says no to plugin hybrids , Yes to pure EV's GM Says No To Plug-In Hybrids, Yes To Pure Electric GM announces the corvette e-ray hybrid for a hundred grand but it's not a plugin hybrid and the next one will be all EV. Chevy Corvette E-Ray hybrid sports car starts at $104,000 see the new Buick plugin hybrid for the Chinese market Buick Announces Velite 6 PHEV For China
I've seen in a couple European sources that the Prime's onboard charger is 3.5kW, which is of course disappointing, as a level 2 charge will take about 4 hours. Here's one video (in German) that mentions it at 4:07:
That's good. C/2 charging (2-hour charging) is too hard on the current generation of lithium-ion batteries, reducing the cycle life. C/4 charging (4-hour charging) is much easier on the battery.
C/4 is easier, but C/2 isn't abusive. Heavy degradation doesn't happen until you get 1C or higher rates. Then the C/2 of the Prime isn't really C/2, because of the upper and lower capacity buffers. It's probably closer to a C/2.5(0.4C) than a C/2(0.5C).
In the US, yes. In Japan... CHAdeMO is standard on the gen4 Prime for a reason. But we are talking fast charging, but Level 2 AC. It's faster than using a standard outlet, but not near the rate of DC fast charging. I do think the 4~hrs at Level 2 for the gen5 is fine; it likely around half the time of Level 1. It is only a bother for those using public Level 2's that charge by the minute.
jeeez that's sad ... even the now 4yr old defunct Chevy volt was charging up to 7.2kW's. Other phev's even higher. plenty of times you go out for a movie for 2 hours or other activity. Half a charge? or full charge. Well ... Toyota did advertise one upon a time ... "if you got [] hours to waste" nope .... they don't even need charging at all. But there's an advantage if they do. also - ... there's a reason buyers get an L2 setup. Because we are an impatient lot. .
if they didn't have charging at all, who would buy one? L2 is fine, and toyota has always accommodated for that. faster is mostly unnecessary, and i would be interested to see the cost of adding it to an already expensive vehicle. does the rav 4 prime have faster charging?
max charge rate I've ever seen in the Prime is around 3kW or 9 amp at 330 volts - from the charger readings in the car as apposed to them 3.5kW many have recorded from the 230/120 volt wall outlet. That 3kW drops within a few minutes to a little under 3kW where it stays, only fluctuating slightly / minimally until it reaches full, and than the charge rate tappers off in chunks while the third LED on the dash flashes. But with outside temps at either 1F or 5F depending which thermometer, and traction pack cold soaked temps in the low 20 F (22 F average) that rate drops to 2kW or 5.7 amp at 350 volts or around 73% SOC at L2 charger. posted for personal reference mostly unless it is also interesting to others. Edit: There are a few other variable that could be relevant. The Prime had a full charge yesterday morning, was driven during rush at around 11 F 13 miles. The car sat all day until 6:30pm than driven in HV the return trip 13 mi. at 5 F. Than I drove it another 5 mi. in HV to warm the cabin and use freezing batteries as little as possible. I plugged into the L2 charger at 73% SOC at 350 volts which is not a normal voltage for that SOC. Normally 350 volts would be about 45% SOC (Prius SOC gauge). It's possible the charge last night could have started at 360 volts - 5.7 amps - 73% SOC .
