Another plug-in Prius manufacturer

John.

when I read your site the first time I doubted it to be true (that true modifications would come out). Now I must say that after market vendor are more interesting to me then anything Toyota is OFFICIALLY working on. It seems like with all thi splug-in hoopla (even from our head honce himself) that it would be a good time for'em to atleast acknowledge they are working on something similar.

 

I wish Toyota would make additional battery avail and integrate it.

Unless I'm missing something, as cool as this LiIon system is, it looks like you charge it by plugin and then it basically drains till it shuts off then your regular system takes over. Will you get no regen while its engaged?... if so, thats alot of wasted power?

Will it allow the regular prius battery to regen and be used while its working in conjunction or is it one or the other?

It definately needs to be integrated enough that regen is possible to take advantage of coasting, braking and downhills etc.

I don't want to loose energy in order to get energy?

If the existing battery is 1.5 kwh and we are only getting about 60% usage... that would make it around 1.0kwh we really get to use?.

If the LiIon is only 5.5kwh and its 100% useable, thats about 5 times what we presently get to use...

If I can only drive one mile on existing battery alone now.... will I only be able to drive 5 miles with the 5.5kwh battery?

Unless I'm missing something.. thats alot of bucks for very little payback?

Someone tell me I'm wrong.......... I was really wanting to get excited about this!

 

Thats discouraging.... 20 hours later an no rebuttals?.....
I was hoping I had missed something... do I really have a viable point?..

Are these guys really claiming something that won't deliver?

 

Go back and read the entire thread again. We're all too lazy to post the same info twice.

Nate

 

Yea.. me too....thats what gendered my questions..... So whats so exciting about a battery that will only go 5 miles and possibly not be able to capture regen and cost who knows how much thousands?

Sorry if I bursted bubbles... I want this to work too.

I"m still hoping there something I missed.

 

I highlu doubt that it will only provide 5 extra miles. If that is true then it will not sell. If it provides in the neighbourhood of what is claimed it will be a great product.

I think regen could be handled. You can probably put in a protection circuit (diod) or simple detect when the gas pedal is released. That way regen can at least be used to fill up the toyota battery.

WHile it probably won't live up to what their PR department claims I feel confident that it will beat your predictions

 

You should still get regen. I suspect there is an interface between the "real" battery and the extra battery. Voltage can be cheated, and energy could flow both ways.

As far as the extra distance is concerned, most of the current battery is consumed accelerating, so cruising, which uses less juice, should give you more range.

This pack will likely NOT cause the car to run "all-electric", it will just cause the car to run VERY electric, like when the pack is full on the current setup. Warmup cycles will be required for emmissions, heat, lubrication, cooling, etc, but very little fuel will be needed for much else. The engine will still run often, but it will run very lean and at lower RPM.

The net result of this pack will likely be a huge jump in MPG, with extended "stealth" periods. It will be difficult to take gasoline-free trips, but will overall reduce your consumption greatly.

The EV button may help this somewhat, but the computer has final say whether to run the engine. (As it should).

Nate

 

why not just replace the toyota battery with the 12.5 kwh battery that is for the ford? Put it under the seat. That way you get the spare tire and the space!!! and even more ev miles. the future is brite, I knew taking a new job in the power plant was smart, been there 4 days now. KILOWATTS ARE GOOD!!!!

 

Here are my dream minimum specs for a PHEV.

70 mile range in electric mode. Minimum 60 mph. Battery fits under the seat with no sacrifice of spare tire. Maximum price of $5,000.

Does anyone sees this happening with the next five years. Or if not then, when?

With this spec, I could virtually eliminate gasoline use as I very rarely take my car on long trips. With widespread adoption, fast recharge, and plug-in service along the highway, then we could eliminate all gasoline use.

Right now, if we' re talking about a cost of $9500 with the advertised specs, don't think this the system described here is going to have much market penetration.

 

There's no room under the back seat of a prius; the fuel tank is
in there.
.
_H*

 

He may be thinking "in place of" the existing battery, but you could even put it the extra space too "if it will fit"

If it can be affordable for a Ford, why are they giving us less?

 

I just filled out my Toyota product quality survey. I put my number one new feature request in for PHEV with at least a 50 mile range at 50 mph. That is acheivable. When they redesign the 2008 they can make more room for the battery necessary.

Coincidentally, I received a response this morning from Toyota Customer service to another email request for PHEV. Looks like we are all going to need to keep the pressure up:

Thank you for contacting Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.

We are sorry that we do not have plans to offer a plug-in hybrid. We have documented your comments at our National Headquarters, where they remain available for review from the appropriate departments. It is through feedback such as yours we are able to monitor and improve upon the quality of our products and services.

Your email has been documented at our National Headquarters under file #200602040281. If we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Toyota Customer Experience

 

Here's a question. Obviously to maintain the bloody performance that everyone expects in a car these days MG2 will have to be beefed-up. The question is how much and what is the relationship between power and volume with electric motors? Just paying around with EV mode it seems that one can accelerate pretty decently just with MG2 (does MG1 also bear a hand here?) as it is now. It seems like you wouldn't need to increase the motor that much to attain reasonable acceleration. In this case you could, possibly, shrink the size of the ICE a tad to cut weight and displacement?

 

Seems like I remember the new hybrid stuff will be smaller, but could be wrong...

 

Oversizing of components is one of the problems inherent in series
hybrid systems [engine turns generator which powers motor which
turns wheels] -- that's why the parallel hybrid saves a lot of
parts weight, because the engine and motor can dynamically switch
from both helping push the car to pushing each other, etc. Having
the engine send 72% of its output directly to the drivetrain helps
the rest of the system a> be smaller, and b> manage the remaining
torque in an intelligent way.
.
Now, as far as acceleration and sizing of MG2 ... think about it
in horsepower per ton ratio, and that the market has been duped for
years into "needing" absolutely ridiculous amounts of power per
unit mass ... that's the real problem, a human one rather than a
technological one, but I *way* digress. One place where sanity
more or less prevails in this regard is the trucking industry, where
*nobody* expects the next shipment of groceries to be doing 0 - 60
in single-digit seconds.
.
_H*

 

Oh yeah, I'm with you on that. But duped or not it's the sad reality. Unless gas prices soar PHEV won't sell if they're expensive golfcarts. Obviously a balance must be struck (one that the current hybrids do well) between economy and performance. They're not racecars but they're not pokey either. Having a large battery pack would allow (it seems) for great MPG because MG2 could really helpout a lot more and could probably handle a lot of the cruising requirement (if not all of it) as Nate pointed out. I wonder what the MPG of such a car would be. Basically leaving everything alone except putting a beefier battery pack in the car. I would love to have a true EV capability because it suits my driving patterns quite well. A 60 mi capacity would mean that I'd by gas about once every 3 months or even less. Perhaps it'd come out this way with a PHEV that has expanded EV capabilities but still functions more or less as the current vehicles.

 

If a Prius PHEV is going 60+ miles on a charge, it's a lot of money and weight to be carrying around an engine that's not getting used.

An all electric vehicle would be better suited for somone only making trips of this length.

 

Yeah, it would be... sort of. You can make the same argument for commuters using cars though. If there's only one person then why aren't they driving two seaters or motorcycles? All of that extra weight (which adds up to a lot more than an ICE) is just waste. I'll agree that all of this (as hobbit pointed out) has to do with psychology, not physics. However, I'd argue that the psychology is (sadly, due to a lack of education) more important that physics (so long as the physical laws aren't violated that is ). everyone wants a car that can do it all. If people think that they might need more range on a somewhat regular basis then they're gonna want it. Perhaps though, the all EV then hybrid approach isn't as good as an even stronger standard HEV approach. I don't know that the numbers would work out to on the economy (fuel that is) of something very similar to the current generation prius but with a vastly expanded HVB. The thought of avoiding fillups for very long periods of time with the standard vision of what a PHEV should be is very appealing, however.

[edit]Frankly, though, I'd even settle for 20 mi. 60 would be the most I'd probably need.[/edit]

 

Humm.. seems we've had this discussion before...
Just think of the ICE as a generator thats gonna bail you out when your electric runs out.

 

Let me tell you that it will be required more than a single parallel cable attached to the Prius battery for the car multicomputers to run smothlly and some internal software changes too, so the CAN can recognize this addition and handle the recharge in both ways properly.
I'm doing my experiments too and encounter several drawbacks. :angry:
Pictures of the energizers in test mode will follow soon.