Featured 2023 Prius spy shot

That would be great. There is a youtube channel that is guessing the same thing :

 

Maybe they are solid rubber

 

176 miles of battery range would be ideal if they could combine it with an underpowered but very efficient range extender that would be used in conjunction with a full battery on long trips, sort of like the i3 but they would need to do better on fuel economy like the Honda Insight.

Otherwise you really don’t need more than about 60miles of range so long as again the gas economy is kept very high.

The failure with many PHEVs was extremely poor fuel economy especially in winter conditions.

 

Yes and no? Probably:

1. No spare (may be a moot point; Toyota seems bent on cheaping out on ALL levels…)

2. Heavier vehicle, and virtually bricks the car if battery does fail.

 

The question is about the non-plug in. Between the Corolla hybrid options, and potential price increase from taking the Prius up scale, how many of the few will still consider the Prius without the plug.

On a personal note, I'm finding the doorstop profile makes it the ugliest Prius so far.

Yes, such a PHEV only needs to be a REx. Too bad CARB ruined the concept here. The fuel efficiency can be improved over that of the i3. That car was using an off the self motorcycle engine that wasn't designed for efficiency, and BMW didn't spend the resources to make the most of the efficiency it could have had mated to an EV drive train.

That said, such a PHEV doesn't need amazing fuel efficiency in hybrid mode. That range means the majority of owners will only be using the engine on long trips. The infrequent use alone will drastically reduce the amount of gas the person will be using.

Renewable gasoline costs around $10/gal now, which is before tax is added. green ethanol and methanol maybe cheaper, but are lower energy content. Fuel economy will have to be very high with shorter range PHEVs in the future.

Many of those PHEVs were built for performance, not economy.

Your Prius will be bricked if its battery fails. These aren't mild Honda IMA systems with redundant engine starters and traditional transmissions. They ain't moving without a working traction battery.

 

Maybe “bricked” is the wrong word: more succinctly totalled? What’s a plug-in battery go for, if you can find them? To be fair, I don’t think any plug-in owners have reported a failure yet.

 

I guess what I'd mostly like to see, and I bet I speak for many, is just the simple dollars-per-joule for each fuel compared. I wish more writing presented it that way, instead of always "this is cheaper per gallon but that has more joules per gallon" that just makes every reader go do the same extra math to see which fuel supplies the energy more cheaply.

 

elektroengineer said 10k for a pip or prime battery, plus labor. and it's not something you yank out by yourself, like the non plug in.
if mine died, it would definitely be totaled

 

Are you sure about this, with regards to Gen 4 and/or Plug In models?

When I had my traction battery fail on my Gen 2, the dash lit up like a Christmas tree (and the triangle of death…), but I was amazed that the car would still drive, though the battery charge fluctuated rapidly and the battery fan would blow constantly. But I could move.

However, every 5-10 mins the car would get tired of me ignoring the lights, and I would disable the electric drive entirely (no energy flow arrows) however I could still move (barely) on the ICE alone. Not a pretty sight, lol. Every time I would try to accelerate, it felt like I was driving a manual transmission trying to accelerate from a dead stop in 2nd gear… and surely annoyed drivers behind me, thinking I was trying to hypermile or something. Thankfully my route was flat and had no uphill starts, or I likely would have been stuck.

The temporary fix was simple - just pull over and “reboot” the car and I would have another 10 mins of driving before it went into limp mode again. Rinse and repeat until I got home.

Nonetheless, it was enough to get me home and not strand me, which was amazing. Did some research, found a guy to rebuild the battery, and drove it (limped it) one more time to the shop to get it repaired, and was good as gold after that.

I presume the Gen 3 & 4 would behave similarly? I don’t know… honest question.

 

You might have thought that's what was happening, but it wasn't quite. The ECU was protecting the worn-out battery by using it very little, and therefore relying on the engine much more, but the battery is still needed to get the engine to start. By "resetting", you can make the car temporarily forget that it needs to protect a worn out battery, and wear it out some more, until you can't.

 

Thanks for the clarification… Makes sense, and I trust your expertise. Either way, it was very weak and would not recommend driving that way unless absolutely necessary. My mechanic also warned driving in this condition can be risky, and suggested that failing batteries cells could explode or catch fire if pushed too far, which will take some expensive computers with it and likely write off the car… So be careful if one were to find themself in this situation.

 

Most cars being purchased today are pure-ICE cars that lack the hybrid powertrain. If gas prices are not high, fuelling method is not the top consideration for most people when purchasing a vehicle.

 

Never let perfect become the enemy of good enough:

• ~25 MPG - current USA fleet average from various sources
  • various 'mild' hybrids in this area
• ~50 MPG - Prius easily achieved MPG
  • PHEVs fall in this gray area
• ~100 MPGe - EV easily achieved mileage

Bob Wilson

 

I might not have heard any reports of that taking computers with it or writing off the car. Maybe if the module that goes bang is right next to the battery ECU....

But in any case, the bang and bad smell will be an answer to your how-long-can-I-push-this question.

 

The battery for a PHEV will cost more, but they aren't dying at a rate faster than for the hybrids. If buying new, there isn't a reason to assume the battery won't last the life of the car. By the time that the battery may need to be replaced, there is going to be a lot of other parts and systems wearing out. The lower cost of a hybrid pack may be deemed too much then.

Since we are talking about Toyota's, the warranty for both is 10year/150k miles in the US.

Needing a new engine, transmission, or any costly repair in any 10 year old car will likely mean an end to its life.

If a new traction pack for the hybrid can cost $4000, $10k for the Prime's is cheap. Even for the PiP's, as its capacity 3 to 4 times that of the hybrid's. Refurbished packs will bring the cost down for both.

The research papers may very well report it has you wish. Lay articles will report it in a format easier for most of the audience to grasp.

The issue with reporting the cost per joule is that it ignores the efficiency of the vehicle power source. Gasoline being cheaper per joule isn't a benefit when the engine is wasting 60% to 70% of those joules.

To clarify, I was referring to driving the car in a normal manner, not a limp home mode. If a PHEV battery hits that point, the car will most likely behave the same way. In the old IMA hybrids, you could bypass the battery when it was bad, and run it as a traditional car.

If eTNGA was designed for use by BEVs too, it should be reinforced for more weight.

Which means plain hybrids are even more niche in such markets.

The fleet average includes all those full size pick ups people are buying, plus older cars. People considering a hybrid like the Prius will be comparing it to cars with MPG ratings on the high side of the average.

The Corolla and Camry hybrids are really close to the Prius. Other markets don't limit the hatchback option to the Prius.

MPGe doesn't apply to a discussion on non-plug hybrids.

 

That can be more of an issue when comparing radically different kinds of power plant, but I very often see this kind of handwaving in the context of comparisons between gasoline, ethanol, or gasoline-ethanol blends, all to be burned in internal-combustion engines of similar thermal efficiencies. In that context, pretending it's just too hard to say what the cost is per joule doesn't do the audience any favors.

We might just be disagreeing about what's genuinely easier for the audience to grasp. For example, consider one kind of conversation that keeps recurring here on PriusChat from time to time, where someone will compare pricing of E0, E10, and E85, say, and someone else nearly always steps in with a handwaving "but the blends give lower MPG!".

That's a situation where a simple comparison of miles-per-dollar would be easy to make and easy for the audience to grasp, and the handwaving seems targeted at distracting the audience from grasping it, and in fact leaving them with an opposite impression. To portray that as just catering to what the audience can grasp would be ... charitable.

 

My brain had been stuck in hybrid to PHEV thinking. Then I was thinking you were talking about articles; specifically ones reporting on research conclusions. Not that an article couldn't be written with aim to obfuscate.

Cost per mile is the best metric for comparing different fuels in different cars.

 

In my post above, I said I'm quite interested in the next get Prius...and if it's a standard PHEV...then 'bonus'.

With all the replies, and thinking about it more, I think I would more likely go with the NON PHEV Prius unless I can get the PHEV for around the same price. With that said, I'm pretty convinced Toyota will continue with the 'regular' Prius and the 'Prime' PHEV model. However, who knows at this point. It should make for some interesting discussion when we see the actual announcement!

 

Nice, I'm interested in the 2.0 ICE engine they will be putting in them....probably will take 0W-16 or even 0W-8 motor oil.